Reprise
by RLD Flame-point Callie-co
Summary: Companion to Resurgence, rewritten from Claire and Peter's perspectives. Not meant to be read as a stand-alone & rated for cutting, dark moments, gore/violence, and character death in a later chapter. *Edited 9/15/2012*
1. What We've Come To

**Well, I've said I was going to do this, and here it is. Things I should mention at the beginning: this probably will not be a complete rewrite or alternative version of Resurgence. It's just a side project I came up with in case anyone was interested in the stuff I couldn't fit into the main story. Because of that, you still need to read Resurgence to understand what's going on after the second chapter, and it won't be updated as frequently.**

**POV: 3rd person all the way through. It's been suggested that I do something from Peter or Claire's POV, but I can't get into their heads like I can Bella's since I had four books to show me how she thinks.**

**Rating: is M for a reason. There will be blood. There will be cutting – even if the fact that it's Claire and she heals right away makes it less disturbing, it still might bother some people. There will be non- or semi-graphic mentions of sex, but no smut. And there'll be a bit of messy character death which will be graphic. Don't say I didn't warn you.**

**Disclaimer: Tim Kring and Stephenie Meyer don't shy away from bloody scenes either (as proven by Sylar and Breaking Dawn) but I'm not them. So Heroes and Twilight aren't mine.**

Reprise: (in music) a repetition or return to the first theme or subject

Part I: What We've Come To

_Peter and Arthur Petrelli – Pinehearst, New Jersey _

Peter didn't even notice three of the people in the office he'd stormed into seconds ago; his mind was completely occupied by the fact that his father – who was supposed to have been dead for no small amount of time by now – was standing there, very much alive.

"Dad?" The question was almost rhetorical, an instinctive reaction to seek confirmation that he wasn't hallucinating.

Arthur nodded. "Come here, son – give your father a hug."

Peter stepped forward to do as the man who appeared to be his father asked but also scanned his mind; there was undoubtedly something funny going on here, and he had no intention of walking into a trap. This guy could be an impostor with the ability to make Peter's skin melt off for all he knew.

_Just a little closer and his powers are all mine…_

The younger Petrelli recoiled as if a snake had lashed out at him. "_What?_"

Arthur's face darkened as suddenly as storm clouds blotting out the sun. "Grab him!" he instructed his flunkies, drawing Peter's attention to them for the first time.

Knox and Flint rushed to obey their boss, blue flames kindling on Flint's fingertips, but Peter was too fast for them and next thing they knew Knox was in the air, flying across the room and smashing into Arthur's desk. Flint got electrocuted, the pain messing up his aim so badly that the jet of fire released from his hand missed Peter completely and set the carpet blazing instead.

Daphne, who'd hung back from the fray, shot off down the hall in search of a fire extinguisher.

Arthur watched the unfolding chaos with total astonishment. His youngest son had never fit into the Petrelli mold, but this…was just outrageous. Not only had Peter stopped him from acquiring whatever powers he'd managed to pick up, he was also trashing Arthur's office!

He had to be ejected from the building, and fast; there was no way he would let Arthur close enough to take his powers now and besides, if he stayed there much longer he might destroy something more valuable than the furniture. Arthur raised his hand, directing a burst of telekinetic energy at Peter…

_Claire Bennet and Elle Bishop – outside Pinehearst_

"Thanks, Claire."

"For what?"

Elle shifted uncomfortably but continued, "Pretty much everything. You've been nothing but sweet and I've been nothing but a bitch-"

Her awkward admission of gratitude was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass from somewhere above; both girls looked up just in time to see someone crash through a seventh-story window. They jumped apart, and the glass rain – as well as the falling body – hit the sidewalk between them.

"Peter!" Claire exclaimed, hurrying to his side. "What happened to you?"

He took her outstretched hand so she could help him up, pushed some broken bones back into place, spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth that had been chipped or knocked out altogether by his face-first fall onto the sidewalk, and muttered something that sounded like 'Dad'.

Elle crossed her arms. "Your father's dead, Peter," she countered.

"No, he's alive – I don't know how, but he's alive and he just tried to take my powers. We have to get out of here."

Claire nodded in agreement; having her ability removed might be a relief, but if the people in there had tossed Peter out of a window she was willing to take his advice and leave. She just wasn't willing to leave someone else behind. "Elle?" She looked around for her adversary-turned-ally, only to see the other girl backing away. "Elle?" she repeated uncertainly.

"We came here to have our powers taken away, and Peter says they can do that." Elle edged closer to Pinehearst's entrance.

"Yeah, they just tried to take his even though he didn't want them removed, then tried to kill him! Elle, they're dangerous!" She took a step toward the girl she was beginning to feel an unexpected bond with, holding out her hand. "Come with us."

Elle shook her head. "I'm sorry, Claire!" With that she turned her back on Claire and Peter and ran inside Pinehearst.

Claire's hand dropped to her side, an unpleasant combination of regret and betrayal twisting her stomach. "Just when I was starting to think someday I might like her…" she muttered.

Peter gave her a skeptical frown; this short encounter was all it took to bring back memories of his time in Primatech's long-term detention area, during which Elle zapping him had been a daily occurrence. Call him petty, but he couldn't imagine ever liking her after that. "Forget about it. If Pinehearst taking her power is what she wants, that's her choice. Let's get going before dear old Dad decides to send someone out after me."

"Great idea."

Scooping up his niece, Peter took off into the sky. He never gave a backward glance to the building where he'd gone for answers and found just another strand in the tangled web that marked relationships in the Petrelli family. Just one more skeleton in their already overstuffed closet. Now he couldn't decide which disturbed him more: that his father's supposed death from a heart attack or suicide or whatever the final story of what had killed him was had all been a lie, or that this discovery didn't come as that big a shock. Since his ability first manifested Peter had uncovered so many things his parents had kept from him, he was beginning to think nothing would surprise him anymore.

_Peter's apartment – Manhattan_

Claire stood over the sink, watching her blood drip from where she traced lines down her forearm with a knife she'd found in one of the drawers and borrowed. No matter how deep she cut, she never felt more than a vague sense of pressure on her arm. She dug the blade in deeper until she heard it scraping bone – still nothing remotely approaching pain.

Disappointment registered faintly in the back of her mind, but she didn't show it. Her face remained blank and impassive; _unfeeling, just like me, _she reflected.

"What're you doing?"

When she heard her uncle's voice from the kitchen doorway Claire tried to hide the knife and her slashed arm behind her back, but Peter saw a few telltale red drops hit the floor and pulled her arms out in front of her in time to catch the last of her self-inflicted wounds healing. His eyes stayed there even after no trace of damage remained, then slowly travelled to the bloody knife in her other hand and finally up to the stricken expression on her face.

"Something you want to talk about?" he asked, his tone one of forced calm.

"There's nothing to talk about. I'm fine." She tried to pull out of his grip.

He didn't let go. "Claire, you're cutting yourself! When people do that, they're not fine."

"Well I'm not most people," she said defiantly, digging her nails into the backs of his hands to make him let go of her wrists. "I wasn't hurting myself. I can't hurt anymore." Walking quickly away, she stopped after crossing to his bedroom and noticing that he seemed to be in the middle of packing. "Are you going somewhere?"

Peter didn't answer right away; Claire turned back to him, biting her lip. "Yeah, I… I'm leaving." The words came out like he could hardly believe them. "I don't know for sure if Dad plans to come after me, but I'm not hanging around to find out."

"Where will you go?"

"Not sure yet," he admitted with a shrug. "Out of New York. I hear Siberia's nice this time of year."

Claire ignored this slightly lame bit of humor. "Take me with you." Peter's expression told her he was less than enthusiastic about that idea, but she pushed on. "My dad's working with _Sylar_ now – I can't live with that when it's his fault I can't feel anymore! If you don't let me go with you I'll just run away on my own!"

"Uh-huh. Where would you go?"

"Anywhere. I'm not staying in the same house as Sylar's new _partner_ after what he did to me," she insisted.

Peter stared down at her, considering his next move carefully. It was clear that she meant every word about not going back home, and there were any number of things that could happen to teenage runaways…things maybe even Claire Bennet couldn't recover from… "Okay," he agreed, forcing his mind off that track. "I'll take you to get your stuff, and then we'll figure out where to go from there."


	2. My Direction

**This is the first chapter that's taken me less than 24 hours in I don't know how long! As you might guess from the chap title, this one's about P and C trying to figure out where to go after leaving Manhattan and Costa Verde (respectively), Peter dealing with the repercussions of taking Sylar's power – I can't stop picking on him for that – and drawing/dreaming about our favorite klutzy brunette. I guess I oughta warn you that parts of it are pretty dark, and there's some moderate to severe Petrelli-bashing – my favorite family of psychopaths, yippee! **

Part II: My Direction

_Peter Petrelli & Claire Bennet – Bennet house, Costa Verde, CA_

"It wouldn't kill you to help me y'know," Claire complained after closing the suitcase on her sizeable shoe collection with difficulty. Receiving no answer, she asked, "Peter, are you still there?" He hadn't taken her back to her house to 'pack' just as a trick to get rid of her…had he?

But he was still in her room's doorway, watching her with a look that could best be described as speculative. "What's your hurry? Your parents, your brother aren't home, you haven't said goodbye-"

_I don't want to. _"You didn't say anything to anyone either. I guess… I can't stay here with Dad anymore, but Mom and Lyle… If I say goodbye, then it feels official somehow…" …_that I'll never see them again. _"Look, can we just finish packing up and get out of here already?"

Peter sighed as resignation set in. He'd delayed as long as he could, trying to give Claire time to come to her senses – not that he'd mind having her along for company wherever he ended up, but the fact was he needed to drop off the radar for a while, however long it would take to determine whether or not Arthur meant to hunt him down, and that would be harder with a seventeen-year-old girl in tow; then there was his _other_ problem… But she hadn't changed her mind, so now there was nothing else for it but to hit the road and take her with him. "Fine, if that's what you want."

Packing went a lot quicker with Peter's telekinesis, and he and Claire were almost out the door when Noah Bennet's voice stopped them in their tracks. "Just where do you think you're going?"

_Damn it! _Of all the things Claire had found not to like about her adoptive father over the last year, his gift for sneaking up on people was currently topping the list. His tone was the same one that had quelled a lot of her teenage rebellion in the past; it wasn't going to work this time, though. This time wasn't just some trivial instance of wanting to defy parental authority, and this time Claire was too angry with Noah to let him push her around. It might have been a different story if Sandra had asked her where she thought she was going but as it was, Claire had no problem telling Noah, "I'm leaving. I can't stay here."

"So you've decided to stay with Peter?" Much as it was a blow for Noah to hear that Claire was leaving her family – or more likely leaving _him_; he doubted that she'd want to move out if not for his association with Sylar – he could at least be sure Peter would keep her safe.

"Yeah, she's staying with me. Noah, can I talk to you in private for a minute?"

The two men left Claire pacing the front hall and went into Noah's office to talk. "What's on your mind?"

"I just want you to know this wasn't my idea. She's really upset about this whole Sylar thing, and she said if I didn't take her with me when I left New York – long story – she'd take off on her own; I don't know if she was serious or just saying stuff in the heat of the moment, but it's a chance I'd rather not take. She's safer with me."

"I have to say I agree with you there. Where will you take her if you aren't going back to Manhattan?"

"We're not, uh, not sure about that yet," Peter admitted, embarrassed by the haphazardness of their plan, or more accurately their lack of any plan whatsoever. Haphazard might be all right if it was just himself he had to worry about, but taking responsibility for his niece as well made it a whole other ballgame, so to speak.

Noah processed this with far less fuss than Peter expected. "You'll figure something out. Wherever you go, I know you'll take good care of my little girl."

###

That night, staring up at the cracks and mildew adorning the ceiling of his room as Noah's last words rang in his ears, Peter decided the other man's confidence had been misplaced – and not just because he'd taken Claire to a place that was well-qualified for a list of the crappiest motels in America.

The day's events had distracted him temporarily but now, lying there with nothing urgent to occupy his mind, the power he'd taken from Sylar stirred inside him again. He felt the hunger, and knowing that Claire was right next door, asleep, defenseless, the perfect person to rip into to satisfy that hunger was exactly what he _didn't _need at the moment. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his fists clenched on the ratty blanket as if to hold him where he was, keep him on his side of the door separating him from Claire. She'd never see him coming…

"Screw it," he said to himself. Although the hunger always gnawed at the back of his mind, distraction made not acting on it easier; he could make his own distractions when none were readily available. Luckily he'd remembered to toss in pencils and a notebook while packing his bags, so he dug them out and called up Isaac Mendez's ability, forgetting that maybe he didn't want to see what the future held for him now.

_Claire Bennet – crappy motel room, still in California_

"Screw it," Claire unknowingly echoed Peter; she was ready to give up on sleep after unsuccessfully trying to doze off for three hours. _We have got to hit an ATM and get more cash so we can stay somewhere better tomorrow. _Since being stuck here was Peter's fault for not carrying much of anything besides credit cards, Claire decided she wouldn't feel too bad about waking him up – if he'd even been able to sleep given the state of the beds in this place, that is.

Taking advantage of the broken lock on the door between their rooms, Claire left hers for Peter's and discovered that he was awake. That didn't surprise her; the way he completely ignored her entrance, however, did. "Peter, hey, I… Peter?"

He didn't so much as glance her way even when she spoke, evoking a mixed reaction in her. Worry quickly won out over annoyance and the former cheerleader shook his shoulder as gently as she could. "Peter, can you hear me?" He shrugged her hand off. Claire circled around to try catching his eye and pulled back with a gasp – Peter's eyes were blank and white, like a dead thing's. "Peter!"

Snapping out of his trance just as she grabbed him, he threw her to the floor before realizing who she was. "Claire? I'm sorry, you just startled me," he apologized while picking her up.

"Well you scared me!" she exclaimed crossly. "What were you doing anyway?"

"Drawing the future, looking for some clue where we should go, what we should do."

"Did it help?"

"See for yourself." Peter offered her his notebook.

Claire took it, disappointed to find that the picture told her nothing. The dark-haired girl who lay curled on her bed hugging herself was completely unfamiliar. "Is this a friend of yours?"

"I have no idea who that is. All I know is I tried to draw our future and she's what I came up with." That frustrated him more than he let on; he could guess that this was someone he and Claire would meet and while meeting a pretty girl was hardly the worst that could happen to them, he had hoped for something to tell them where their next stop might be. If they were meant to meet this girl, was a clue to her actual location too much to ask for? _How do you track down someone without even knowing their name? And then what? I bet she'd really love me and Claire appearing out of thin air in her room! _

Also, the girl was crying her eyes out and Peter had enough problems already that the prospect of a new acquaintance with her own mile-high stack of issues didn't thrill him. His irritation fed into the part of him that was becoming like Sylar and his view of the girl in the picture shifted: weak and unsuspecting, she'd make an easy target for a little misplaced aggression – _then_ she'd have something to cry about! _Maybe I'm supposed to find her to put her out of her misery. _

Another second and the thought almost made him sick. He knew he'd messed up badly by forcing Sylar's future self to teach him how to use his deadly intuition, that even going to that wretched future had been a mistake, but he'd never killed anyone and wasn't about to start with some innocent girl. _Just because she looks like she wants to be put out of her misery doesn't mean she really does. I wouldn't do it even if she did; that's _not _who I am! Not yet anyway… You were wrong, Noah. Claire isn't safe with me. No one is. _

He didn't want to look for the girl anymore after that, didn't want to know who he'd considered making pay for his mistakes and especially not where she was now. That decision hardly demonstrated brilliant use of logic considering that if he lost control he was just as likely to rip off someone else's head as hers; telling Claire to get away from him as fast as her legs would carry her would have been smarter.

It would also have been much harder, because Claire was the only tie to his old life he had left. No one else had his new cell phone number or was even aware he'd left Manhattan, although Angela and Nathan might know by now if either of them had tried to get in touch with him in the two days he'd been gone. He'd chosen to leave them out of the loop not because goodbyes would've made the separation seem more permanent – he already sensed that it was – but because their roles in Arthur's supposed death and what they may or may not have to do with him now were all unknowns.

Although there was no evidence that they were involved in whatever Arthur was up to with his company and very talented employees, neither was there anything to make Peter think they _weren't_. In fact, he'd bet his last dollar that if his father was up to no good, Angela would be in on it – this was after all the woman who'd been on board with engineering the Shanti virus for biological warfare, had planned to let Peter or whoever else was handy blow up part of New York City before that, and Nathan had fallen in line with that particular insane plan.

Granted, he'd changed his mind at the last minute but that didn't erase the fact that it _had _taken him until the last minute to decide killing millions of people was too high a price for his political advancement. Peter could no longer say with absolute certainty that Nathan was trustworthy _and_ he'd always been close to Arthur, so confiding in Nathan about running away from Arthur didn't seem like the brightest idea.

So Peter had severed ties with all but one of his family; Claire was all that was left. If that wasn't reason enough to keep her around, she was in the same fix as him: her ability was as messed up as his, and they both wanted out, to get away from everyone who'd let them down in the past and start over. When he thought about it, it actually made perfect sense for them to stick together.

It felt wrong not to warn her about his newly acquired bloodlust though, so he finally told her and hoped she'd understand. She didn't – _why would he want to do anything _Sylar_ did, s_he wondered – but she wanted to stay with him regardless.

However much it horrified and disgusted her that Peter, who she used to think of as her hero, even crushed on before learning that they were related, had willingly absorbed the thing responsible for making a nice watch-repairing guy into the monster who took apart brains, she could still differentiate. Peter might have the same killer instinct as Sylar now, but he didn't necessarily have to go the same way; he hadn't killed anybody and never would if she had anything to say about it.

"Does having Sylar's intuition make it hard to use _any_ of your powers?" she asked. When he shook his head no she said, "Good. Then after we pick up my new car we can go find another motel. I guess we still don't have anywhere more definite to head to since you can't draw or dream about anything more helpful than your mystery girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," Peter snapped, which he wouldn't have done if this was the first time Claire had referred to That Girl, the brunette who kept popping up in nearly every precognitive flash he got, as his girlfriend – once was funny but eight times later, the joke was wearing thin. "I don't even know her name, or anything about her except that I want her out of my head!"

Claire just shrugged. _Whatever, I'm getting as tired of That Girl as he is but it's not like I can help him there._

Peter heard her exasperated thought, and his new dark side came back with, _Sure, all she does is heal. There's really not much she can do to help anyone. _That part of him wanted nothing more than to smack the annoyed look off her face, knock her head right off her shoulders – _I'm strong enough to do that and she's no good to anyone but herself_ – he fought the urge down and thought that if Claire's ability was telepathy instead of regeneration, she'd be running back to Noah Bennet right then.

**I really do love Peter, but I have to say that if Arthur hadn't taken his powers away and he'd had Sylar's for too long, I also really think it'd start messing with his brain eventually. But we all know my story doesn't include him removing Claire's head since this takes place before the beginning of the other one and in it she's still alive and well… and will most likely stay that way because all the bad things happen to Bella.**


	3. Winter of Our Discontent

**The chapter title is taken from a line of Shakespeare's Richard III which I thought was very appropriate for this part. The chapter itself has more self-harm from a certain indestructible cheerleader so (this is a warning) I'd advise you not to read too close to any meal, especially if that meal includes hamburger.**

**There's also a bit at the end with Sylar that explains where I deviated from canon regarding him, and ties in with ch1 of Resurgence, finally!**

Part III: Winter of Our Discontent 

_Claire Bennet & Peter Petrelli – Forks, WA_

"_This _is where we live now?" Claire surveyed her and Peter's new house dubiously, unsure if she despised it or might come to love it after it had been cleaned up a little - or a lot. "It looks like Miss Havisham's house from _Great Expectations_, and it smells like old lady and cats!"

"Sorry," Peter said with a shrug. "It was all I could find, plus it was relatively cheap."

Claire frowned, incredulous. "This place, cheap? It may not be our style but it's still a pretty nice house if you can ignore the smell."

"Well, the guy selling it said his mother used to live here, but he was putting her into assisted living after she broke her leg. He lives out of state and wanted to get rid of this place quick so he could quit paying property taxes on it; even threw in the furniture for an extra five hundred. Convenient, huh?"

"Yeah, sure." She infused her voice with all the enthusiasm she could muster, trying to give the impression that Peter's attempt at cheering her up was working. Really, there wasn't much to be unhappy about – just the fact that their destiny apparently included living in this borderline-wilderness hick town for some time.

_Welcome to life on the run, _again_, _she thought bitterly. When you were a fugitive, there were two types of place you could go: a huge city where you could get lost in a population of thousands, or a town so small, so inconsequential, that your pursuer was unlikely to think of searching it. Claire for one would have preferred the former, but according to Peter's precognitive drawings Forks was the place for them. Now Claire was thinking the same thing she had when Peter asked her to shoot him in Kirby Plaza: _the universe cannot be this lame! _Except that it clearly was.

At least their new house's bathrooms had good water pressure, making a welcome change from the crummy motels they'd stayed in while road tripping to Washington; Claire felt like years had passed since her last decent bath. The first thing she did after telling Peter which room she wanted her suitcase and bags in – hey, he had super-strength and she didn't – was to shut herself in the first bathroom she came to, strip off everything she hadn't been born with, even her earrings, and get in the shower.

Warm water cascaded through her long hair and over her gold-tanned skin; she stood still, simply enjoying it for a moment before reaching for shampoo or soap. As she watched soap suds wash down the drain, a new thought crossed her mind: she had been burned several times, mostly by taking things out of the oven without a potholder and once when she ran inside a flaming derailed train to save a man…but what about all-over scalding? She hadn't tried that one yet…

Claire turned the water to its hottest. Steam covered the mirror in seconds and thickened the air, but the blonde never moved – not even when her skin blistered, cracked, and peeled off under the boiling-hot flow and the water streaming to the floor ran red. To her, this felt no different than the earlier pleasant warmth – as long as she kept her eyes closed, she didn't even know she was getting burned alive.

###

For the hundredth time, Peter wished Claire had stayed in California; she'd have been happier, as she obviously disliked Forks. He had yet to make up his own mind about it. The Olympic Peninsula was practically another planet to the native New Yorker, perhaps explaining why it in no way felt like home. More likely it was because he wasn't here by choice, or because he and Claire would pack up and leave in a hot second if Pinehearst's agents found them. Settling in was hard with that air of impermanence hanging over their heads.

But until something happened they'd have to fit in as best they could. He'd already enrolled Claire in the local high school, where she would start next Monday, and found a new job for himself. Not as a nurse, though – resuming his old profession was too predictable, the kind of move that would get them caught for sure. He'd be a paramedic this time; it was different enough from hospice care that Arthur wouldn't expect it, but similar enough to qualify as familiar territory. He could adjust.

_Now if I just knew _why _I'm trying to adjust to this place… _What was so special about Forks, that out of all the unremarkable little nowhere towns he and Claire could've disappeared in _this _was where they were meant to be? "Would it kill you to give me some straight information for once?" he asked, glowering at his notebook as though it was to blame for his muddled non-understanding.

It was an extremely boring-looking object even by notebook standards, not that Peter had ever found notebooks in general very interesting, but as he glared at it everything else seemed to fade from his awareness, and it suddenly became the most fascinating thing in the room. He considered fighting the oncoming premonition – lately they hadn't been useful enough to make up for the inconvenience of zoning out for an indeterminate length of time – however, he _did _just ask for more information, and the notebook and pencil were already in his hands although he hadn't consciously reached for them…

_Almost an hour later_

By the time Peter's mind was his own again the room had grown significantly darker, disorienting him. He got up to turn on a light, banged his shin on the coffee table, and sat back down, flipping the switch telekinetically instead. _Why's it so dark? Was I out that long? _But no, his watch read 5:21 PM – there should have been a good hour till sunset. He thought the cloud cover might speed up nightfall once the sun began sinking, but lacked sufficient knowledge of meteorology to be certain.

_One more change to adjust to, _he thought, and then, _Where's Claire got to? _Counting the hour he'd spent drawing, a not-inconsiderable stretch of time had gone by since he last saw her. Was she still upstairs or had she gone out?

Peter reached out telepathically, finding her easily. There were a few other minds within his range, but hers was the only familiar one and the closest. He zeroed in on it and immediately realized two things: one, she was still upstairs and two, something was very much the matter with her, though he couldn't tell what because she was keeping her mind blank, stubbornly _not _thinking about it.

He zipped upstairs to check on her, moving much faster than he had before encountering Daphne Millbrook – so fast, in fact, that he nearly crashed into the door, but instead phased through it at the last second. The bathroom was so steamy he could hardly breathe; he ripped the shower curtain aside, shut the water off and opened the door to clear the air – and wished he hadn't once the steam dissipated enough for him to really see Claire.

It wasn't that he was seeing her with her clothes off; awkward as that was, he could handle it. Seeing her with her _skin _off, on the other hand… Peter backed away, using every ounce of his willpower to fight a rush of nausea triggered by the sight before him.

Every surface inside the shower was smeared with blood, the floor littered with raw bits of epidermis that had sloughed off Claire's body. It was a scene special effects techs spent hours fabricating for horror movies, yet it didn't begin to compare with Claire herself; what skin she had left was either blistered or just a black, leathery eschar*****, and in other places no skin tissue remained at all, baring her veins and the red-brown tissue of her muscles.

Claire instinctively covered her chest, but there was nothing there to hide and she thought maybe the urge to do so wasn't about protecting her modesty – no one could possibly find all that burned, bloodied meat attractive – maybe she was simply ashamed of what a wreck she'd become. She'd tried hiding it but now the façade had been stripped away with her skin, exposing the mess underneath. It had been a while since she felt human; now she didn't look like one either.

Peter finally choked out, "What've you done to yourself, Claire?"

"Turned the water on hot and scalded myself," was her redundant answer.

"_Why? _Tell me, what reason is there for…?" Lost for words, he waved a hand at the bloodstained shower.

"I don't wanna talk about it." Sure she wasn't going to bleed on the floor now, she tried to leave, and to her surprise Peter let her. She retreated to her room and watched herself heal in the mirror – new skin grew where it was needed, blisters vanished from the leftover old skin; even the blackened dead tissue repaired itself, though it should have needed surgical removal. Her hair, which had turned brittle in the hot water, became soft and silky again.

Once she was dressed she went back to the bathroom, where she found Peter scrubbing out the shower. "Here, let me do that; it's my mess."

"Why'd you do it, Claire?" he asked. "First you cut yourself, now this! What's happened to you?"

She sprayed more Scrub-Free on the wall, venting her frustration on a sponge. "_Sylar!_ Ever since he took my ability I've been different – _more_ different, I mean. I can't feel pain anymore, and sometimes I can't feel anything at all. I don't know why I keep trying when it never hurts but I thought maybe something new-"

"Okay, stop! Just stop, all right?" Peter knelt beside her, took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. "I want to help you, but I can't if you don't try to get better on your own. That means no more stunts like this, okay?"

"Fine," Claire sulkily agreed.

"Good. No one'll hurt you anymore, I'll make sure of it."

###

Cleaning up the blood took an entire roll of paper towels and ruined a couple of sponges, which were tossed into a garbage bag along with the peeled skin and dumped in the living room's old-fashioned fireplace, where Peter used radiation to reduce the whole thing to a pile of dust.

"Are you sure that's safe?" Claire asked from where she stood dangerously close; radiation poisoning was no threat to her after all. "You're not going nuclear again, right?"

"No, I can control it now." His hand glowed for a brief moment, then returned to normal. "See?"

"That's great. And…you seem to be coping with Sylar's power okay too. You haven't eaten any brains lately." She chuckled nervously, wondering if she was treading on thin ice now. "Is it getting easier?"

Peter stared darkly at her, whether angry or just taking his time deciding how to answer she couldn't tell. "Not really," he finally said, voice cool.

Claire cast about for a less touchy subject. "So what were you up to while I was in the shower?"

"Drawing."

"Drawing what?" He shrugged. "Mind if I look?"

"Be my guest."

She picked up his discarded notebook and flipped to the last used pages. "Newton's Olympic Outfitters? What is that, the Forks version of Bass Pro Shop? I don't care if it _is _supposedly our destiny, no way am I sleeping in a tent!" She turned the page to find yet another picture of That Girl, this time wearing a truly cringe-worthy fluorescent orange vest.

What grabbed her attention once she recovered from the shock of that vest, though, was whose company the girl was in. "Peter, check this out!" She thrust the notebook at him, hissing, "Sylar's here! Or he will be here, and chatting up our mystery girl."

Peter's eyes widened. "Hang on, there's one more…" he muttered, "…here." He and Claire took in the last image in stunned silence, then both began talking at once.

"It all makes sense now – the store's in this town-"

"And the girl works at the store-"

"She must be like us because Sylar's going to take her brain-"

"No he's not." Claire's gaze bored into the drawing of Sylar telekinetically scalping the girl with more venom than Peter had known she possessed. "He's killed too many innocent people and gotten away with it for too long! But not this time – this time we're gonna stop him. We're gonna save her."

_Sylar – Newton's Olympic Outfitters_

_Saturday night_

He didn't come here to kill anyone, really. Nobody believed it, but he _was_ trying to change. He'd even succeeded in absorbing a new power without killing the person it belonged to. Of course Angela Petrelli hadn't expected him to do that; she'd brought Sue Landers to him to feed his hunger, not to help him develop his sense of empathy. Not to help him get control.

Noah Bennet had told him that. _"She's not trying to help you because she doesn't think there _is _help for you… She knows you… You're a monster…"_

_"You're wrong; my mother cares about me."_

_Noah shook his head, cold amusement showing through the eyes behind those horn-rimmed glasses. "Right, you actually believe that. Let me tell you something: I've seen the way she takes care of her family, and it's nothing like how she's 'helping' you now. She just wants to use you. Don't take my word for it; put that lie detection to good use and see for yourself."_

Gabriel had resisted for a while, but Bennet's words stuck in his head and next time he saw Angela he had to know, had to be sure. Now he was sure that the Petrellis were absolutely not related to him in any way; he just wasn't sure whether that revelation was enough to make him throw away the progress he'd made toward mending his ways.

Needing time alone to think, to decide if he would keep trying to be Gabriel Gray or if he was Sylar once more, he'd boarded a Greyhound somewhere and stayed on till the end of the line, and now he was in some tiny wilderness outpost. He wandered into a sporting goods store with the vague intention of buying a map, finding out where in the USA he was…and then he saw _her_.

She was conversing with a round-faced, spiky-haired boy whose overwhelmingly orange vest marked him, and also her, as employees of whatever establishment this might be, and she appeared less than enthusiastic.

He couldn't blame her – the boy was as ordinary as a pigeon in New York, while she was not. She was _special_; he could see in the way she seemed so misplaced here that she didn't belong in this mundane little store, with this painfully average boy. Still, he couldn't see the _way_ she was special, how she worked, what made her tick. He understood every intricacy of a watch's inner workings, yet this girl was beyond him.

Then he knew. He knew that he was Sylar, and he knew he would have her. Not now, not right here, not with all these other people in the way, but neither could he stay away from her; the hunger to understand how she worked was too strong.

She didn't even notice him behind her for several minutes, too absorbed in arranging backpacks on a shelf, her movements slow and mechanical. Finally she felt his stare and turned, asking, "Can I help you with something?" with the blank politeness of someone emotionlessly executing a preprogrammed action.

Frightening her now would cause him unnecessary trouble; he excused his watching her by pretending to need her help finding tents. "Yes, if you could just point me in the right direction… Bella."

*******Eschar - a slough or piece of dead tissue that is cast off from the surface of the skin, particularly after a burn injury, but also seen in gangrene, ulcer, fungal infections, necrotizing spider bite wounds, and exposure to cutaneous anthrax; sometimes called a "black wound" because the wound is covered with thick, dry, black necrotic tissue.**

**I came across this term when I researched severe burn wounds (because I've never actually seen what full-body scalding looks like) and put in the definition here to prove that it's a real word.**


	4. Saving Bella

**This chapter covers the end of Resurgence's ch1 and most of ch2, after which I'll begin skipping around a little. The next update will most likely start with Claire's first day at Forks High and either a flashback of the rest of Peter and Claire's weekend or just a brief overview.**

Part IV: Saving Bella

_Peter & Claire – Newton's Olympic Outfitters, Saturday night_

When Sylar walked into Newton's, Claire sprang out of her car and started after him. "Crap," Peter muttered before following her, darting in front of her and catching her by the shoulders. "Claire, hang on a minute!"

Her blue eyes were cold as ice chips; he only had to look into them to know she had no intention of hanging on for even a nanosecond, but she told him so anyway. "No! I'm going to stop him – let go of me!" She struggled and would probably have succeeded in escaping Peter's hold if he wasn't stronger than the average human. As it was, he kept her from moving an inch. "Let go!" she insisted again.

"If I let go, what're you gonna do?"

Claire looked at him like he was crazy. "Stop Sylar! That's what we're here for, isn't it?"

Peter took a deep breath and tried reasoning with her. "No, we're here to save Sylar's next victim. There're lots of other people in that store, so he's not likely to attack her in there, is he? _Is he_, Claire?" She reluctantly shook her head no. "So the girl's safe till she walks out. Run in and start throwing punches at Sylar now, and you'll get yourself arrested! We'll wait for him to make the first move – that way if anyone sees us take him down we'll have a good reason. And the girl can back us up, if she will," he added, realizing it might not be a bad idea to have their story corroborated by an outside party.

"She will," Claire said confidently. "Someone saving your life makes you pretty danged grateful – I should know. Okay fine, your plan sounds better than mine."

"I just want to make sure we don't end up in jail for saving this girl. I'd rather not go there again – so we wait."

_Two hours later_

Sylar stood in a corner of the parking lot where the shadows were deepest, fists clenching and relaxing in an impatient rhythm as he waited for the store's lights to go off, for his prey to emerge. Ever since he'd walked out of the store without buying anything – earning a dirty look from the boy manning the checkout counter – he'd been fighting an urge to go back in and keep an eye on the girl. In fact, he'd been fighting that urge since she left him in the tent aisle; watching her walk away, it had been so tempting to call her back, _pull_ her back…

…But he couldn't. If he hadn't let her leave _that instant_, he couldn't have stopped himself from finishing it then and there – finishing _her_. _Soon, _he told himself, _soon I'll have her, and when I do…_ He wouldn't creep up behind her and take her completely by surprise; it would be kinder, but he wasn't going to be kind to this one. She'd kept him waiting too long, and during that time the memory of how his intuition couldn't tell him _one damn thing _about her had tormented him, building his hunger for her almost past endurance.

Even though that wasn't actually her fault, she would pay for it. Sylar was already imagining how he would catch Bella Swan when she walked out of Newton's and, like a cat toying with a helpless mouse before eating it, pin her so that she would have to face him as he sliced into her forehead, look into his eyes and read his murderous intent there so that her last seconds would be pure terror… Picturing it nearly made his mouth water.

The fantasy was interrupted before his favorite part – the part where he opened Bella's head and scooped her brain out the way people scooped out a pumpkin's insides before carving it into a jack-o'-lantern – by the ringing of that stupid little bell over the store's entrance. Sylar glared at the door, but his angry expression changed to a predatory grin as his prey came out – with that utterly worthless punk who'd talked to her earlier and scowled at Sylar as he made his exit.

_Her boyfriend? _Sylar listened to the boy's cheerful "Bye Bella" with disgust; he was so ordinary he barely belonged in the same room as her. _If she's got no better taste than him she certainly doesn't deserve to be so special even _I_ can't understand her! _

Bella waved as the boy roared out of the parking lot in a minivan only a soccer mom could love, then headed for an ancient fossil of a truck that, in Sylar's opinion, only a blind person could love. Smiling in anticipation, he strode forward to begin making his fantasy a reality. Step one was telekinetically freezing her feet mid-stride, causing her to lose her balance; the fall wasn't meant to hurt her badly, just to give her a small taste of the pain she'd feel very soon. If she happened to realize that she hadn't simply tripped over something and felt some precursory alarm, that was even better.

It seemed to have worked; Sylar could tell Bella was rattled by the way she shuddered when he spoke, although it might have been because she recognized his voice. He thought she'd sensed something disturbing in him earlier. "Hello Bella. I thought that guy would never leave, but it's lucky for him that he did, and for me; now I can forget about dealing with him and skip straight to what I came for."

She looked over her shoulder at him, letting him see the panic written all over her face. "What do you want? I don't have any money!" Her voice was the frightened cry of an animal caught in a trap, powerless to save itself – so pitifully weak that Sylar couldn't bite back a quiet laugh when he heard it.

"That's not what I want from you, Bella Swan." Normally brains were the only thing he actually touched, and any other 'contact' with his prey was via telekinesis, but he made an exception for Bella, pulling her roughly off the ground by her arm – he'd waited so long for this that he wanted to take his time, really savor it. _It's good to be myself again, _he decided as he drew his finger across her forehead a bit slower than usual, smiling at her agonized scream…

The moment was over all too soon, abruptly ended by something – no, some_one_ – crashing into Sylar, breaking his concentration and his metaphysical hold on Bella. She could have run away then – Sylar was in no position to stop her, distracted by the person who had body-slammed him and was now hitting every inch of him she could get her hands on. He grabbed a fistful of his assailant's long hair and jerked her off-balance; she stumbled against him and he forced her head back, determined to see the face of whoever had dared get between him and his prey.

"Claire?" His rage was somewhat dampened by astonishment – he'd thought he was done with the cheerleader.

"Surprised to see me, huh?" she spat, trying to throw him off despite the fact that she clearly wouldn't be able to.

Peter had hung back momentarily because he knew Claire wouldn't be satisfied until she'd gotten her licks in but kept his eyes on her, ready to step in at the first sign that she was in over her head. Now he tore Sylar's hands off and hurled him away from her. Sylar recovered instantly thanks to his stolen healing power, starting to get up much faster than he should have been able to; Peter kicked him in the ribs, knocking him onto his back and holding him there with a foot on his chest.

Sylar couldn't push him off – physically, Peter outmatched him – but he could pack a formidable telekinetic punch. In a second the situation was reversed: Peter was the one down and Sylar was poised to cut into his forehead…only to be thwarted for the second time that night.

During Peter's last conversation with her dad, Claire had taken the opportunity to sneak into Noah Bennet's closet, pilfer a taser, and hide it in her luggage with neither him nor her uncle any the wiser. Now she whipped it out of her jacket's inside pocket and discharged it at the base of Sylar's skull. He fell to the ground, knocked out cold.

Claire glanced around, wavering between making sure Peter was okay – though he had her ability so she knew he _should _be – pounding on Sylar some more, or checking on the girl he'd attacked, who had collapsed when Sylar released her. She vividly remembered the day she'd asked her biological mother for combat training, Meredith's persistent questioning about the motives behind her request, her insistence that she wanted to learn to fight so she could help people until finally, suffocating as Meredith's pyrokinesis burned away all her oxygen, she'd broken down and admitted she really just wanted to take her revenge on Sylar.

Now she had a chance to do exactly that; Sylar was down for the count, unable to resist…she could do whatever she wanted to him, maybe even fry his brain with her taser so that he wouldn't heal… But her gaze seemed inexorably drawn to his victim instead. Another memory seized her: the first night Sylar (and Peter) entered her life and Sylar, mistaking Claire's ex-friend Jackie for the super-powered cheerleader he was after, scalped her while Claire fled.

She'd always felt some guilt over that, mostly because Jackie wouldn't have died if Sylar hadn't confused her with Claire – although she'd brought that on herself by taking credit for Claire's rescuing that man from the train wreck – but also because she hadn't tried to help Jackie at all. Of course there was nothing she could have done _then_, but now maybe she could help _this_ girl. _So maybe I really am more interested in helping people than in hurting Sylar. _The realization surprised her.

Pausing just long enough to get Peter's assurance that he would deal with Sylar, Claire sprinted toward the other girl before she could change her mind. The girl's face was covered in blood from the cut that stretched halfway across her forehead, her body motionless apart from the odd twitching shiver; she didn't seem to notice when Claire knelt beside her.

_Maybe I'm too late – maybe she's already… _The same feeling of helplessness Claire had experienced while watching Jackie die right in front of her paralyzed her brain. She turned the girl's face up and swiped at the blood on her eyelids, hoping they might open. When she didn't respond Claire shook her shoulder and shouted at her, "Hey, wake up! Come on, he can't have had time to cut through more than skin, you can't be dead – wake up, please!"

At long last her eyelids fluttered open, revealing widely dilated pupils surrounded by the thin dark rings of her irises. Claire sighed in relief and smiled although she wasn't one hundred percent convinced the other girl was actually seeing her – those glazed eyes kept sliding in and out of focus. _She might still die right now! Haven't I read something about people slipping into comas after getting a head injury and dying later? I should probably try to keep her awake, talk to her or something…right?_

"You're safe now, you'll be okay," Claire promised, trying to make her voice reassuring. "It's just a little cut; you'll be fine in no t-" She broke off as the girl's shivering grew more violent and her teeth chattered loudly. "Here, let's get you off the ground; it's too cold for you to lie on."

The brunette seemed to agree but made no move to get up, so Claire tried to move her only to find that she couldn't lift the other girl's dead weight. "I'm sorry, you're too heavy for me. Just, um, wait right here for a minute, and I'll get help, all right?" Peter would be able to move her; Claire looked around for him and found him with Sylar, one hand on the unconscious serial killer's forehead.

Claire remembered the Haitian touching his victims' foreheads exactly the same way when he removed their memories and allowed herself a moment of vindictive satisfaction – maybe Peter could take _all _Sylar's memories, leave him a blank slate like Brody – before calling Peter's attention to the girl. "Peter, aren't you done yet? I need help with her."

"Just a second, Claire…" he muttered, double-checking to make absolutely sure there was nothing remaining in Sylar's memory that could bring him back to Forks. "There, I think that's everything; we should be fine now." He teleported Sylar away – _very far away_ – then turned his attention to Claire. "What were you saying?"

Under cover of darkness, Claire rolled her eyes. "_The girl we came here to help_, Peter! She's bleeding all over the place and can't seem to move on her own, and I couldn't get her up, and…would you just get over here and do something?!"

He took in the girl's bloody face, the way she'd flopped back against her truck's tire like a rag doll, and wondered whether she was truly still alive and for how much longer. If she did succumb to her injury or shock in the next few minutes he didn't want Claire to see it and so dispatched her to their car for a flashlight, which he'd need anyway if he could still treat the girl.

Peter crouched down beside her to get a better look but couldn't detect any motion in her chest; her skin was the palest he'd ever seen, her lips slowly turning blue. _She's dead all right, _he decided, though there was something strange – the top of her head was still attached, so why would she have died? He pressed his fingertips to the wound on her forehead and nearly jumped out of his skin when the girl he'd thought was dead whimpered at his touch.

The moment passed quickly, and then he got back to business. "Relax, I'm not hurting you. I know this doesn't feel good, but I've had worse. I'm Peter, by the way. Can you tell me your name?"

Her teeth were chattering too hard for her to speak clearly but she managed to stammer out, "I-I'm Bella S-Swan."

_Bella Swan – well, it's nice to finally be able to put a name to her. _Claire returned with a flashlight before he had time to form any more thoughts on Bella Swan; seeing her face in better light, however, gave him an impression that she must be an easy bleeder – she really had lost a _lot _of blood for someone who'd sustained nothing worse than a flesh wound.

Before Peter and Claire had left the Bennets' house, Noah had insisted on giving them a first aid kit 'just in case'. Neither of them had wanted to take it, seeing no point since they never got hurt; yet Noah had insisted, saying they never knew what might happen later. _Dad was right, _Claire thought ruefully as she hurried off to fetch it. _Someday I'll learn to stop questioning him…except about working with Sylar. _

Meanwhile, Peter pulled Bella off the cold ground and discovered to his dismay that she was almost completely limp. She wasn't exactly unmanageable, just sort of all over the place – holding her up was like wrestling with Jell-O. "Why c-can't I st-" she started to ask.

"Stand up on your own?" Peter finished for her. "You're having a mild case of shock, and you need to warm up. Do you mind if I put you in your truck, since we're closer to it?"

"S-S-Sure, it's unl-locked. Go ah-head."

He was taken aback – leaving one's car unlocked was unheard of in Manhattan – but perhaps people in Forks were more trustworthy. Or perhaps Bella just wasn't worried about anyone stealing her truck – because really, who would want to? Peter wrapped one arm securely under both of Bella's, opened the truck's door with his free hand – wincing as its hinges screeched in protest – maneuvered her onto the driver's seat, and took the key from her trembling hand. Once he'd turned on the heater she huddled next to it, drew herself into as tight a ball as she could and sat there shaking, her teeth still clacking together.

Not particularly wanting to get in that truck with the heat on full blast, Peter leaned on its open door and attempted to be discreet as he observed Bella. Seeing her in person for the first time, he found her underwhelming. It wasn't like him to think harshly of somebody he had just met, which bothered him – or maybe it was Bella herself that bothered him.

His precog powers had focused so intensely on her that he'd expected…_something_. Maybe not for her to be another Sylar in the making, or even another Ted Sprague with some potentially devastating power, but then why were he and Claire meant to save her? Claire…she was the only other person whose destiny had become entwined with his like this, and there'd been a reason for that: she had turned out to be his niece, and then there was the whole 'save the cheerleader, save the world' thing.

What reason was there for rescuing Bella, for relocating to Forks just because it was where she happened to live? Had saving her saved the world, or what? _What is so special about Bella Swan anyway? _It wasn't the first time Peter had wondered about that – nor, he suspected, would it be the last…

**It's not explicitly stated so in case anyone wonders – Peter erased every memory Sylar had that related to Bella or Forks in any way as well the ones of how to use his powers (although he wasn't as thorough with that part so you can be pretty much assured that Sylar WILL regain full mastery of his abilities in time… unfortunately… but not of Bella). **

**Then Peter teleported him away without going with him the same way Future Peter did Matt Parkman; if you want to know where he sent Sylar, it was the Amazon rainforest. I'm not sure whether Sylar met Zafrina, Senna, and Kachiri there, but as far as him getting eaten up by mosquitoes? Yeah, that's a given. And I don't know if Claire's power extends to itchy bug bites. **


	5. The New Girl

**You'll be pleased to know that I've decided to begin work on Resurgence's sequel very soon, and the first chapter might be up by next weekend if all goes according to plan. The title, if you want to know what to keep an eye out for, will be Resilience. (Feel free to speculate on the significance of that if you'd like.)**

**About this chapter: it's Claire's POV on her first day at Forks High and corresponds to Resurgence chapters 3 and 4.**

Part V: The New Girl

_Forks High School – Mrs. Cope's office_

"There must be some mistake," Claire said after scanning the schedule she'd just been given.

"Mistake, dear?" The secretary frowned up at Claire from her seat behind the front desk. "Where?"

"You've got me in biology first period; I took that class last year."

Mrs. Cope reluctantly put aside her novel and took the paper on which Claire's classes were listed, apparently wanting to see for herself. "Hmm, so I have…oh dear…" She handed the schedule back with a sigh. "Well, it's first period – nothing to be done about it today. I'll see if I can't switch you into something else by tomorrow, and in the meantime you'd better run along before you're late, dear."

Claire obediently left for the science building but thought she might already be late – the hallways were nearly deserted. _Did I miss the final bell? _How _did I miss the final bell? _In fact, she hadn't – it rang just as she picked a seat at the back of the classroom.

"That's the final bell, people; everyone in your seats now," the teacher, who Claire's schedule told her was called Mr. Banner, announced. "Lauren, that means you too," he added to a girl who was still standing by another table and had shown no sign of discontinuing her conversation when the bell rang.

She quickly apologized and headed toward a table, which turned out to be the one where Claire was sitting. "You're in my seat," Lauren informed her in a tone implying that Claire was supposed to drop to her knees and beg forgiveness – something Claire felt no need whatsoever to do.

Having come face to face with Sylar only last weekend and, in her opinion, done a pretty good job kicking his butt, Claire's intimidation scale was calibrated to a high setting – Lauren didn't even register. "Sorry, I must've missed the place where it has your name on it," she coolly replied. Indeed, Lauren hadn't left a purse or anything else to mark the seat as hers.

"Oh…" Lauren blinked in a manner that Claire instantly recognized as belonging to a bully who wasn't used to anyone standing up to her. "Well, I guess you can sit there today if…if you want to," she said uncertainly.

Inwardly Claire smirked, satisfied that she'd proven she wasn't the type to let herself be pushed around. Now she could afford to back off, give the other girl a break. "Nope, I don't mind moving over. Is the other side of this table free?"

Lauren affirmed that it was and then sat down on the stool vacated when Claire slid over onto the one beside it. She would have preferred to move to another table altogether, as she didn't relish the idea of having Lauren as a seatmate; unfortunately, Mr. Banner had already started talking and probably wouldn't appreciate her doing that.

_Sitting here won't be so bad, _Claire told herself, remembering that she would hopefully be out of this class tomorrow. Anyway, it wasn't like she'd never dealt with people like Lauren before, or even been friends with them – behavior-wise, Lauren was uncannily like Jackie Wilcox, and hadn't Claire once considered Jackie her best friend? Of course they'd been less friendly in the end – the end of Jackie's life, of Claire's attempts at pretending to be normal, whatever, but definitely the end of _something_ – but Claire was still sure she could recall enough of her old bubbly-cheerleader persona to get along with Lauren for one hour.

What Claire hadn't counted on was that Lauren was much nosier than Jackie had been. During the course of that hour, Lauren asked at least twenty questions about anything and everything relating to the life and times of Claire Bennet – where she'd moved from, what her old school was like, who she'd dated there, what her parents did for a living, what her hobbies were – Claire stifled a laugh as she imagined telling Lauren that her main hobby these days was injuring herself and watching her wounds heal in less than a minute.

As if having to withhold a lot and even tell a few outright lies when answering the barrage of inquiries thrown at her by Lauren – as well as a few other people – whenever it was possible to carry on quiet conversation undetected by Mr. Banner wasn't irritating enough, the fact that her interrogators _never stopped talking _meant that Claire had no opening to ask about the current object of her own curiosity: one Bella Swan.

Claire and Peter were sure she was an evolved human like them; why else would Sylar have tried to take her brain? They had guessed that she was also likely to be a student at Forks High – meaning school would be an ideal place for Claire to find out more about Forks' other special resident. _But not if she isn't in any of my classes and no one shuts up long enough for me to ask anything about her, _the former cheerleader thought, grinding her teeth in frustration.

Her chance finally came in the cafeteria's serving line at lunch, when one of Lauren's friends asked, "So how are you liking Forks?"

Recognizing the opportunity, Claire gave the springy-haired motor mouth – Jessica, she thought her name was – a bright smile. "You know, I haven't actually seen that much of Forks – been busy moving in and all – but I did get out to do some shopping last Saturday. It was late so there many people in the stores, but I met this one girl that said she went to school here," Claire fibbed. Bella hadn't mentioned school – or much of anything, being too traumatized to make small talk while Claire drove her home. "Her name started with a B, I think…"

"It wasn't Bella, was it?" The speaker was a tall, rather taciturn girl who hadn't done more than smile and nod when Claire was introduced to her.

"Yeah, that was it! Do you know her?" _Have you ever seen her move things without touching them, or levitate or something?_

"I know her," the girl said softly.

"Wait a minute," Jessica broke in – it seemed sixty seconds was the longest she was capable of holding her tongue. "Are you talking about Bella _Swan_?" Her tone was incredulous, as if there was something strange about bringing up Bella Swan…or maybe about Bella herself…

Anticipation quickened Claire's pulse, but she maintained her outward calm. "That must be her. How many girls named Bella can there be in this town? It's not a very common name."

"Let me get this straight," Jessica said. "You met Bella last weekend, and she actually _talked _to you? Like, acknowledged your existence and everything?"

"Yes…any reason why she wouldn't have?"

"It's just that Bella doesn't really do that," Jessica replied with an awkward little laugh.

Claire's eyebrows shot up. "Bella doesn't talk to people, or she doesn't acknowledge anyone's existence?"

"Either one," a redheaded junior girl answered. "The whole time I've sat at this table – ever since I started going out with Eric last month – I've never seen her do anything except eat her food, and when she does that…well, it's like watching a robot. It's kind of creepy, actually."

"Why doesn't she talk to anybody? Is she stuck-up or something?" Claire asked.

Lauren snorted. "Stuck-up? No. _Messed up _is more like it. Still pining over Edward, I bet."

The scornful note in Lauren's voice didn't encourage continuation of the topic, but Claire persisted. "Who's Edward?"

"Edward Cullen," Jessica explained, taking a deep breath; she evidently had a lot to say on this subject. "He and his brothers and sisters used to go to school here and they never had _anything_ to do with anyone outside their family – at least not until Bella moved to Forks. Her first day here, even Edward was staring at her, and he usually didn't check girls out; then later they started dating – they even went to prom together, although I don't think prom was really Bella's thing. I mean, she's such a klutz it's hard to imagine her dancing, you know?"

Claire nodded absently; she _had _noticed that Bella seemed a bit clumsy, if her tripping over her own feet in her driveway was any indication. "But Lauren said 'pining'. This Edward guy didn't _die_, did he?"

"Oh no, Edward didn't die; he just dumped her."

"That's not really true, Jess," piped up the quiet girl. "Edward's father, Dr. Cullen, accepted a job in Los Angeles and they moved."

Jessica waved a dismissive hand. "Angela, they have telephone and Internet service in LA. If Edward had _wanted_ to keep in touch with Bella, he totally could've found a way to. She hasn't heard from him since last September, so yeah, I'd say he ditched her."

Claire frowned. "But this is the end of January – that's like four months ago! Isn't that kind of a long time to be sad about a breakup?"

"Oh, Bella wasn't just _sad_," Jessica said cheerfully. "She was completely heartbroken – she even missed school for a week after the Cullens moved away. I heard she was, like, catatonic – wouldn't eat or even get out of bed. Her mom came into town – she and Bella's dad are divorced and she lives in Florida – and she was supposed to take Bella to live with her, or to a mental hospital or something, but obviously it didn't happen because next week Bella was back in school. Only she wasn't really _back_, y'know? I mean, she's right here and everything, but it's like her head's up in space. I swear she wouldn't even react if you dropped nukes on her head."

_Peter could test that theory_, Claire thought with a grin; it was short-lived, though. The more Jessica spoke, the less Claire liked her – seeing another human in pain seemed to have little effect on her, beyond providing her with a juicy topic for gossip. _Note to self: be extra careful to never get hurt in front of Jessica. The girl cannot_ _keep a secret._

"So," began Lauren, "haven't you done anything else since moving here? I mean, if meeting Bella was the high point of your weekend, you _really _need to get out more."

"Well, other than being nervous about starting a new school in the middle of the year, my first weekend in Forks wasn't really that exciting. I didn't really get out of the house much."

"Still, you must have done something other than unpack boxes. Come on and tell us, Claire."

However, before she had a chance to tell them anything, a loud _crash_ diverted their attention. Claire spun around and saw the elusive Bella Swan at last – standing stock still in the middle of the cafeteria with her tray tilted vertically and her lunch on the floor at her feet.

Silence reigned for a moment; then the floodgate broke. The room erupted in laughter, applause, and whistling, one guy shouted, "Way to go, Swan!" and some teacher whose name Claire had forgotten pushed his way through the spectators to berate Bella for making a mess – during all of which she just stood there, her cheeks flaming, until the teacher shoved several paper towels into her hands and told her to start cleaning up.

All the while Claire had stayed in her seat, thinking that surely one of Bella's friends would see how embarrassed she was and help her out… Only no one did, and slowly Claire realized that nobody intended to do anything besides act like Bella had a 'Point and Laugh' sign stuck on her back.

The blonde's instinct to stick up for the poor kid who got picked on kicked in, and the teacher's snide remark about how Bella should 'save her performances for a more appropriate place' was the last straw. "Hey, leave her alone – it's not like she dropped her lunch on purpose!" Claire said loudly, jumping up and fixing the teacher with her best glare.

He returned her glare with a nasty smile that made Claire want to punch him. "How nice of you to take up for Miss Swan. Since you seem to be feeling generous, maybe you'd like to help her clean up, Miss-?"

"Bennet," she snapped, "and I'd be happy to." It wasn't usually in Claire's nature to voluntarily clean up somebody else's mess, but Bella clearly needed her; she marched over and dropped to her knees beside the blushing brunette. "Pass me a couple of those towels, Bella."

Bella muttered, "Um, sure," and obeyed, after which the teacher huffed his way out of the cafeteria, presumably in search of a mop, and the chatter resumed its normal rhythm as the students grew bored with staring at Bella and Claire and went back to their food. Once they were no longer the center of attention Bella said, "Well, thanks. You can go finish eating now; I can handle this by myself." Clearly she assumed Claire had only offered to help her out of momentary pity, and would want to ditch her ASAP.

"No way! I said I would help you, and that's what I'm doing. Unless you're dying to get rid of me." _Which you might be if you knew I have an ulterior motive for hanging around you. _

Whatever special power Bella might have, it wasn't telepathy; instead of being suspicious – because really, why _would _anyone spend their lunch break mopping food up off the floor for someone they didn't even _know_? – she flushed again and mumbled, "No, I didn't mean- go ahead and stick around if you want."

"Thanks, I _really_ don't wanna go back to that table." _Hey, _Claire decided, _I might as well be just a little honest with her before I start poking around, investigating her abilities. _

"You don't? Why not?"

Claire lowered her voice. "Because I don't like Lauren; I just couldn't think of a not-totally-rude way to ditch her. Does that make me sound terrible?"

This seemed to please Bella – she ducked her head to hide a grin. "No, I don't think you're terrible for wanting to get away from Lauren. She's not exactly my best friend, you know."

"Yeah, didn't sound like it." Especially not considering the vicious edge in Lauren's voice as she gossiped about Bella. "So who _is_ your best friend if it's not her?" Claire was genuinely curious to know who Bella Swan's friends were – and where they'd been while the vast majority of Forks High's student body was ridiculing her for dropping a tray.

Bella gazed down at the floor, chewing her lip. "Um…I guess right now you are."

Claire froze. Part of her wanted to scream, _I am _not _your friend, Bella! _But she couldn't do that. Instead she settled for saying, "But we just met. Well, technically we met last Saturday, but the actual time we've spent together probably isn't even half an hour. And you don't know anything about me." _Like who I really am, why I have to get close to you… _

_Flashback – Saturday night_

"There's something weird going on here, Claire. This Bella kid – if she's like us, why didn't she use her power to get rid of Sylar?"

"How should I know? Maybe her power's no good in a fight…like mine," Claire added dispiritedly.

"Don't say that." Peter nudged Claire's chin up so that she had to meet his eyes. "You kicked Sylar's ass tonight, power or no power."

Claire smiled. "I did, didn't I? He's gone and Bella's safe – which brings us back to the part where we don't know why keeping her safe was so important."

"No we don't, but we have to find out. She looks about the same age as you – probably goes to Forks High. It'd be a great place for you to keep an eye on her."

"Why? We've done what we were supposed to do; why shouldn't we just leave her alone now?"

"Because I can't!" Peter snapped. "I got too close to her out there, so now whatever ability she has is in me too! And if turns out to be something that could blow up in my face later-"

"You need to know what it is and how to control it," Claire finished, "and there's not a whole lot of places to find that out except from the source. So what do you want me to do? Find Bella at school and act like I'm her friend until I've found out what she can do? And then what? Do we call Dad to haul her off to Level Five?"

Peter sighed. "Of course not. I just need to know what I'm dealing with here; we don't have to do anything to her unless she turns out to be dangerous-" He broke off as Claire opened her mouth to object and held up a hand; she zipped her lips and nodded for him to continue. "By 'dangerous' I mean what she intends to do, not what she _can _do. It won't be like the incident with Stephen Canfield, Claire, I promise you. I won't let that happen."

Reassured now, Claire nodded. When it came right down to it, she didn't really think she would have refused to help Peter find out what he needed to know about Bella anyway; in the first place, he already had more than enough on his plate what with trying to manage all the powers he'd absorbed, some of which were downright scary. Whenever Claire got to feeling depressed over the apparent uselessness of her regeneration ability, she just told herself that at least _she _never had to worry about exploding, or accidentally setting the house on fire, or trying to remove someone's brain… But she couldn't dwell too much on that last one.

Aside from that, this was _Peter_ – her friend, her hero, her family, for crying out loud! Bella Swan was nobody to her, so if she had to choose between helping Peter and manipulating Bella just a little – there was no question where Claire's loyalty lay. "I just don't feel right about dragging her into this. My life got so much more complicated when I found out what I could do – what if she doesn't know yet, and I'm gonna be the one to pretty much decimate her world as she knows it? If somebody else had come up to me and told me I could heal, I think I'd hate them."

"I don't think you'll have to drag her into anything. You heard what she said – she knows that what happened tonight was no ordinary mugging, and she's already asking questions. Trust me, Claire, she'll come to you."

_End Flashback_

Peter, Claire now knew, was right. She hadn't been alone with Bella for two minutes when Bella brought up last Saturday's events. This was the moment for Claire to act on her decision; she could head Bella off right then and there if she wanted – the other girl wasn't assertive enough to pursue the subject if Claire discouraged her now.

Instead she just said, "And if anyone had asked you about it what would you tell them? What did you tell your dad, the cop?"

Bella sighed, relieved at not being immediately shot down. "I told him about the guy cutting me, and that you and Peter ran him off and took me home. He said he'd never heard of you, and he didn't think he needed to talk to you; I was able to tell him what the man looked like. But I doubt Charlie will find him – I don't think he's in Forks anymore. You told me he wasn't coming back-"

"And he's not," Claire said quickly. She didn't want Bella to take this any further just because she was afraid of Sylar returning. "You don't have to worry about seeing him again."

"But I still want to know what he was doing here in the first place. Him walking into Newton's and deciding to attack _me_ out of all the people in that store, you getting there at exactly the right time to save me and then ending up at my school all seems completely random, but I can't shake the feeling that it isn't! Am I losing it, or…?"

_Damn! She's not just scared, she really wants to know… even though in the long run she might be happier not knowing. _"You're not crazy, Bella. You might be better off if you were, but you're not."

"So if I'm not crazy, what's going on here?"

"This isn't a great place to have that conversation; there're things I have to show you-" Like the precog drawings that had led to Forks in the first place – Claire wouldn't expect Bella to believe her story without them as proof.

"What things? Where?" Bella eagerly demanded.

"At my house. I'll tell you what – come with me after school, and I'll show you everything."

The bell signaling the end of lunch rang and Bella set off for her next class with a new spring in her step, leaving Claire staring after her. _You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into… I _will_ show you everything, just like I promised – but you probably won't thank me later._

**Just to clarify, Claire's current attitude that she's probably not doing Bella a favor by cluing her in to the existence of evolved humans is of course related to Claire's own issues with her power, wishing she was normal, etc.**


	6. Closer

**Ever wonder how Bella went from barely being able to talk to Peter to calling him when she thought there were vampires in Forks again? Wonder no more – that's what this chapter is all about. In fact, that's ALL it's about; it's mostly just a long character exploration piece on their relationship pre-romance. The events covered here are from Resurgence chapters 8-10, and I think it kind of jumps around a little. But everyone who's read Resurgence (everyone reading this, in other words) should know what I'm talking about. **

Part VI: Closer

_First Beach, La Push_

Since the move to Forks, Saturday and Sunday had become Peter's least favorite part of the week; they were his days off from work, and there just wasn't anything to _do _then. He'd suggested taking Claire to a movie – unused to having a housemate, he decided he probably wasn't there for her nearly enough, not that Claire minded – thanks to Bella, who had to be the most devoted friend a girl could ask for, she wouldn't be getting lonely anytime soon.

Claire, however, had an essay to write and so had been unable to take him up on his offer. "Bella's already written hers," she'd said – _So that's why her sidekick isn't here today_ – "Maybe she'd like to see a movie with you, since I can't hang with her."

"Yeah, that'd be fun," Peter retorted, drily sarcastic. He had nothing against Claire's best friend apart from a vague sense that there was something a little odd about the way she was _always _there – lately it seemed like he couldn't look at Claire without Bella popping into view as well – but he could tell she wasn't comfortable with him, which bugged him because he had no idea why. It wasn't because his disastrous attempt to understand her ability using Sylar's intuition had resulted in him nearly attacking her; it was something about Peter himself that made her stammer and blush more than usual.

According to Claire, there was a simple reason for this: "You're older than her and she finds you intimidating. But don't worry, it's not like she has a crush or anything."

_Thank goodness for that,_ Peter thought as he wandered along the cold, windswept crescent that was the shore of La Push's beach, where he had gone because what was the point of living near the ocean if you never went there? The standoff with Arthur had thrown his whole world off kilter, and he was just beginning to make sense of life again. The last thing he needed was the added complication of a teenage girl's crush, especially a girl it was impossible for him to avoid.

Stopping just short of where the incoming waves would've gotten his shoes wet, he stared out at the sea for a long moment – until, through the waves' crashing, an odd snuffling sound reached his ears. Looking around for the source, Peter discovered he wasn't as alone as he'd thought; there was a small human figure curled up on a large rock overlooking a tidal pool. He moved a few paces closer and was surprised to recognize her. "Bella?" he called out.

Bella jumped and lost her always-precarious balance, but Peter flew out over the pool to catch her before she hit the water. "Thank you," she gasped once he'd landed and put her down.

"No problem. Hey…" She turned away after a split second, but not before Peter saw the streaks down her face and her red-rimmed eyes. "Were you…_crying_?"

"No," she said too quickly, punctuating the denial with a vigorous shake of her head. "Nope, definitely not crying. Not me."

"Yes you were. What's wrong, Bella?"

"Nothing's wrong! I- The wind made my eyes water, that's all."

Peter knew she was lying, and that he wouldn't get her to open up by pressing her – if he ever would, that is. "Well, it _is _cold out here. You wanna warm up?"

Bella hesitated. "Warm up? How d'you mean?"

"C'mon." He led her to where the beach and the woods met, found a large fallen branch, and lit it with a jet of flame from his fingertip.

"Wow." Bella bent to examine the fire, holding her palm close to feel the heat. "It's hotter than normal…and it's blue. Who'd you copy this power from?"

"His name was Flint," Peter said shortly.

Bella realized from his tone that he didn't really want to talk about Flint and quickly moved on to the next question on her mind. "I suppose you have some way of making sure this fire doesn't get out of control, don't you?" she asked, taking a nervous step back from the burning branch.

"I can handle the fire, trust me."

Bella threw Peter a sharp look when he said 'trust me', as though she read more into those words than he'd meant, then looked away. For a long moment she did nothing except watch the dancing blue flame, while Peter watched her. "There's a lot you can do," she ventured at last.

"I guess so." _Now where's she going with this?_

"I've been reading that book Claire gave me – the one about people like us."

"Is it helpful?"

"It's very…informative," Bella said slowly.

Peter frowned. "Well, does it say anything about what you can do?"

"Yeah, it explains why Sylar's intuition wouldn't work on me. Dr. Suresh seems to think there could be more to it, though – other stuff I might be able to do. The book says maybe this thing that keeps everyone out of my mind could be expanded, that maybe with some work I could stop anyone around me from using their powers." She paused, chewing her lip. "Only…I don't know how to do that. It's probably not something I could learn on my own."

"Maybe Claire could help you," Peter suggested. "Have you asked her?"

"I talked to her about it, yeah. She said she doesn't know how to teach me." Bella dug the toe of her shoe into the sand and, keeping her eyes glued on it, continued, "She also said you might."

To say this surprised Peter didn't begin to cover it. This was Bella Swan, who'd never shown the smallest sign of feeling anything other than discomfort in his presence, and yet… "Are you asking me to show you how to fight with your power?"

"Yes, I am. Will you?"

Peter hesitated; the truth was that he didn't think Bella had the nerve to use her power aggressively, but he didn't know her all that well either. There could be another side to her that he'd never seen, just like he'd never seen her cry before today, and now that he had he found himself thinking differently about her spending so much time at his and Claire's house. Maybe she did that because she was unhappy by herself or at home – it wasn't like he knew very much about what went on in her life.

His newfound sympathy for Bella and her hopeful expression were a powerful combination – he couldn't bring himself to disappoint her. Besides, if things didn't work out it shouldn't be hard to persuade her to drop it. "Okay, Bella, we'll give it a shot."

###

Their arrangement did work out – drawing on personal experience (and occasionally using Micah Sanders' technopathy to hack Primatech files for additional information) Peter and his new student soon figured out the best way for her to tap into her latent abilities. Bella, in spite of being a bit socially awkward, wasn't lacking in brainpower; she was a fairly quick study and, if she didn't pick something up right away, she stuck with it until she did.

In fact, it surprised Peter how persistent Bella could be; for some reason – maybe because her klutziness gave her the appearance of a pushover – he'd thought she would throw up her hands and whine when confronted with anything difficult. Now he was finding out that she really wasn't so helpless – it was just that her fierce stubborn streak was buried too deep to see until you spent enough time with her to push through the shyness that she wore like body armor.

Now that he had Peter understood why Claire was friends with Bella, and without noticing when it happened, one day he realized that he actually _liked _her – as Bella, not just as Claire's omnipresent gal pal whose presence he was forced to tolerate.

Still, even as she became one of his closest friends – and how could she _not _be, when they usually ended up spending practically the whole weekend together; Bella hated having too much alone time, and her father was always off fishing or watching something on ESPN or playing cards with his deputies – her training sessions were the only time it was just the two of them. Whenever they did anything else Claire always joined them, and sometimes observed Bella's 'tutoring' as well although there wasn't much she could do to help out there.

Maybe Peter had been subconsciously wondering what would happen if he ever tried just hanging out with Bella, because when she called him early on the morning of February fourteenth he found himself surprisingly willing to join her in wandering through the woods with no clear idea of what they were looking for. Then when the howling of a pack of psycho wolves forced them to leave the forest or be deafened, Peter took her to the Burnt Toast Diner in Odessa, Texas.

Bella grabbed his wrist, and he guessed she must be freaked by the unfamiliar surroundings since she wasn't a big believer in physical contact. "Where exactly are we?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"Texas."

"_Texas_? Holy crow, that's at the other end of the country from Washington! Is there any particular _reason_ we're in Texas?"

"Because this was the first place I thought of. I'll take you home now if you want me to, or we could grab something to eat while we're here; I don't know about you, but I haven't eaten anything since last night."

Bella's stomach seemed to agree with this suggestion, because it growled audibly before she could say anything. "All right, I'm hungry too," she admitted, flushing, "but I don't have any money with me…"

"No problem; I'll pay for whatever you want. C'mon." Peter slipped out of her circulation-stopping grip, but took her hand instead of pulling away entirely. He started walking; she stayed where she was, clearly not thrilled about him buying her lunch. "Seriously, I don't mind picking up the tab; you can pay me back if it makes you feel better. And I'll get you home before Charlie knows you're gone – he can't even ground you for going to Texas on a school night since this is Saturday."

Giving in, she followed him into the diner, where they both ate waffles and Bella talked about her childhood in Phoenix. "But this is pretty boring stuff," she said after a while. "Why don't you tell me something about yourself now? Tell me…tell me about your family."

"You already know Claire."

"Well, Claire's not your only relative, is she? I think she mentioned once that you have a brother. And what about your parents?"

"I don't want to talk about them," Peter said quickly.

Bella huffed. "Okay then, let's talk about Claire. Tell me about when you met her at Union Wells' homecoming."

"Why? Hasn't she-?"

"I want to hear it from you," Bella said mulishly. "Besides, her account of that night is sort of muddled. It was pretty traumatic for her."

"Fine," Peter sighed, realizing resistance was futile. So he launched into the story of rescuing Claire, fighting Sylar, the police finding him covered in blood and arresting him, everything that happened at the jail, and how he'd gone into a coma afterward.

Then, after a brief pause to order ice cream for dessert, he continued with the dreams that had led him to Claude, how Claude taught him to control his powers, the plot to blow up New York City (though he glossed over his mother's involvement, not out of a desire to protect her, but just because he didn't feel like explaining to a girl whose mother was a ditzy kindergarten teacher that _his _mother thought blowing up a city and killing 0.7 percent of the world's population was acceptable).

Feeling guilty about not telling the whole truth, he glanced down and saw that while Bella had been absorbed in his tale, her sundae had liquefied. He pointed this out in order to change the subject; she was distracted.

Everything was fine until he committed the faux pas of asking why she was content to spend her Saturday with him instead of wanting to go home and get ready to go out that night. This led to an extremely discomfiting conversation about how she didn't date, was more interested in Peter than in poor Mike Newton, and finally to the big issue that was responsible for her occasional depressed moods but that she never discussed with anyone.

"It's…there was this guy… He was my boyfriend, and I-I was in love with him. I-" She choked up; Peter was horrified to see tears forming in her eyes. Sure, he'd been curious about what had happened to make Bella so sad sometimes – having ascertained a while ago that it had nothing to do with her dad – but he'd never wanted to make her _cry_!

At a loss for what else to do, he covered her hand with his, squeezing gently; she gripped back, and there was nothing gentle about the way she clung to him. "So let me guess, this guy didn't love you as much as you loved him. He ditched you?"

She nodded. "I-I wanted to be with him for-forever. But…he and his family…they just _left_. He said he'd l-let things go on much too long between us and that he…he was tired of pretending," she wailed, her tears escalating almost to the point of causing a scene.

Peter felt slightly panicky – what was he supposed to do with a hysterical girl in the middle of a diner? He did his fastest check-writing ever and, leaving it on the table, pulled Bella out of her chair and teleported back to Forks – all the while praying that Claire wouldn't be home to see the mess he'd made of her friend.

"I'm sorry, Bella – I wouldn't have made you talk about this if I'd known it'd do this to you, it's my fault…" The words, rather than calming her, only got her to throw herself into his arms, sob into his shirt, _and_ wrap her arms around him and squeeze until Peter had a pretty good idea of what it felt like to have your ribcage cracked open for surgery – actually, he thought two or three of his ribs might really have cracked. _Who knew such a scrawny little girl could have such a strong grip anyway? _The only good part of the situation was that she wasn't very heavy; otherwise her leaning on him could have become a problem.

For several long minutes Peter just held her, and then his hand slid to the back of her head, pressing her face into his chest and inadvertently sending his fingers through her hair. It was soft, though not as fine as Claire's, and stroking it released a sweet strawberry scent. She didn't seem to mind – and neither did Peter – so he kept doing it until she'd stopped crying and was merely standing there because-

Wait, why _was _she still standing there with her nose buried in his shirt? And why were his fingers still stroking her hair? _It'd look just great if someone walked in on us like this. _To bring Bella back into the here and now Peter asked, "You okay now?" And just like that, the moment was shattered.

###

Later that evening, Peter could hardly believe that the afternoon's events had actually transpired. The Bella he knew – the focused, determined, sarcastic, bibliophilic, and sometimes flustered Bella – was so different from the broken, vulnerable girl who'd cried on his shoulder that they simply _couldn't _be the same person. It was more likely that he'd fallen asleep and had a wildly vivid dream.

He could almost convince himself that that was all it had been…except that when he tossed his shirt into the hamper, he noticed that it smelled faintly of strawberries.

**FYI, I will now be alternating updates between this story and Resilience, which I hope to have a new, longer chapter for next week.**


	7. Forks in the Road

**Here's CPOV on Resurgence chapters 13-15. I know I'm moving through this pretty fast, I just don't feel like making a 30+ chapter project out of a companion fic. Some parts of the original don't need another perspective anyway in my opinion. **

Part VII: Forks in the Road

_Claire, Peter, Bella, Hiro & Ando – highway overpass somewhere in Seattle_

"Bella, no!"

She didn't hear Peter's shout until it was too late – she shoved Hart again toward the guardrail, not realizing till it was too late that if he fell off the overpass he intended to drag her down with him. Another second and Hart Topper plunged over the barrier, caught Bella's wrist and pulled her over as well. Of course Peter literally jumped to save them.

Claire raced across the overpass's empty lanes, desperate to see whether Peter caught Bella, but Hiro Nakamura materialized in front of her, holding her back. "You cannot fly – you must wait here!"

"Let me go!" It wasn't like she planned to hurl herself into space after all. _If all your friends jumped off (insert your favorite dangerous high place here)… _No, Claire was definitely not going to jump – she just wanted to make sure the people she cared about were okay. She threw Hiro off and turned to see Hart sprawled on the pavement, having been dumped there, and Bella clinging to Peter as if she needed his support to stay upright; Claire ran over to see what was the matter with her. "What happened, is Bella hurt?"

Bella turned her bloody face to Claire but made no move to let go of Peter until he gently pried her loose. "I'm fine, Claire," she said with a sigh.

"No you're not; you've got blood all over your face!" Bella seemed not to have the foggiest idea what Claire was talking about, so Claire prodded the brunette's broken nose with the tip of a forefinger and she cried out, surprised by the pain.

Peter stepped in then to take care of Bella, and Claire got out of his way. The sounds of a scuffle reached her ears; she looked around and saw that Hart still hadn't given up on escaping even with Hiro and Ando both guarding him. Pleased to find something she could help with, Claire kicked Hart sharply in the backs of his knees, sending him smacking into the road for the third time that day. This time he stayed down until Claire and Ando hauled him up onto his knees.

Hiro got in their prisoner's face then. "Daphne Millbrook – have you spoken with her since you escaped?"

"I haven't seen her in months," Hart snarled. "Is that all you wanted to know? You're not from the Company?"

"We're not, but my dad is. You probably know him – the one with the horn-rimmed glasses?"

"Oh f-" Hart never finished his next word, because at that moment Hiro rendered him senseless by hitting him over the head with the flat of his katana's blade.

He and Ando left soon after that, after embarrassing Bella by thanking her for jumping in when Hart was pounding on Ando. "So what're we gonna do with him?" Claire wondered, casting a dubious glance at the knocked-out captive their Japanese friends had left them with.

"Let's lock him in your car," Bella suggested. "Wasn't that what you said we should do earlier?"

"In the _trunk_, yeah."

"You can't put him there unless you want to suffocate him," Peter told her.

Claire's nose wrinkled. "But I don't want him in my car – he smells like he hasn't showered in a week!"

"It won't be for long. Your dad's already on his way; he and I were supposed to pick this guy up tonight."

"Why didn't you tell Claire that sooner? You could've saved us a lot of trouble!" Bella gave Peter an aggrieved look, as if he'd intended her to spend her Friday doing what he and Noah Bennet would have taken care of not much later. Peter only shrugged, and Bella muttered darkly to herself as they moved the unconscious heart-stopper to the Charger's backseat.

"I bet I'll have to put one of those cardboard air freshener things in there after he's been in the seat," Claire lamented as she slammed the door.

"Sorry about that. But now that he's taken care of, we need to take care of Bella. Give me a hand?" Peter fetched a syringe from the Charger's trunk; other people had to keep first aid kits handy – and they did for appearance's sake – but all they really needed to treat injuries was a way to get Claire's blood into whoever was hurt.

Claire extended her arm so Peter could draw her blood and Bella, anticipating what would follow, stepped back. "Oh, no. You can't just go putting someone else's blood in me – what if Claire and I have different blood types? I might get sick."

"No you won't. My dad – Noah, I mean – isn't really related to me, so there's a good chance that he's not the same blood type as me and it didn't do anything bad to him. Besides, you're totally just saying that because you don't like needles."

Bella seemed to accept Claire's assurance that possible blood type differences wouldn't matter in the case of Claire's regenerative plasma, but clearly still didn't want the injection – she really _did _hate needles.

"Come on, Bella," Peter coaxed her, "a little needle's nothing compared to falling off an overpass and you were fine after that."

"Only because you didn't let anything actually happen to me."

"So why do you think I'll hurt you with this? It's not like I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to giving shots, you know."

Bella nodded slowly, reluctantly. "Okay, I trust you. _You_ can give me a shot, just make it quick." She gave him her arm, but closed her eyes and tensed up.

"You need to relax – it'll hurt more if you're tense," Peter said as he felt her arm for a vein.

"It's hard to relax when I'm about to get a needle poked in me!"

"Don't give me that. Seriously, I know you've got more guts than that."

"No, I don't! I'm really, truly, one hundred percent gutless."

Peter kept talking to her to distract her from the dreaded needle, and it worked; Claire watched them together – the way Bella seemed to hang on Peter's every word, the way he barely broke eye contact with her even as he gave her the shot – and wondered at the obvious bond between her uncle and her best friend. How long had they been like that? More importantly, why hadn't she ever seen it before now? It was plain that they were very close friends…or maybe more than friends?

The idea hit Claire like a slap in the face. Peter and Bella…_together_? _Where the hell was I when that happened? _Dazed, Claire ran through her memories of the last couple weeks and found absolutely nothing to indicate that Peter's and Bella's feelings for each other went beyond friendship, if that; Claire had thought they only spent their weekends together because Bella needed Peter's help learning how to use her ability.

_Or maybe that's _not _all they do – how long can Bella really need to practice power-blocking anyway? Why did I never realize…? _Close on the heels of this thought came another: _Why did they never tell me? _Anyone who wasn't blind could see the connection between them, so why hadn't they ever _told _Claire that they had those feelings for each other? _They must've thought I wouldn't take it well, _she decided. _So they kept it to themselves because…why? Because they thought I'd try to split them up somehow? _

Claire couldn't really believe Bella and Peter thought she was that kind of person, but what reason was there for hiding a relationship unless you were certain that the one you were hiding it from would react badly? And even if they _didn't _think she possessed that level of bitchiness, there was still the fact that they'd left her out of the loop. After all, three's a crowd…

###

Once she started thinking along those lines, it wasn't long before she began to feel truly hurt and indignant – enough so that when Noah told her that in his opinion Peter had made a huge mistake trusting Bella with his and Claire's secret and asked her to come back to Costa Verde with him, the words wouldn't come when she opened her mouth to tell him no. Part of her hated the idea of going with Noah – even if he'd been assigned a new partner after Peter had sent Sylar on what Claire hoped was a permanent vacation, she still hadn't forgotten or completely forgiven her dad for working with him – but a nasty little voice in the back of her mind whispered that she _should _go, that Peter and Bella would be glad to get rid of her, and that decided the matter. Better to return to the Bennets, who at least liked having her around, than to stay in Forks as an unwanted fifth wheel. She'd never really liked that soggy little town anyway…

"Sure, Dad," she heard herself say. "When do we leave?"

They arranged to meet at the airport the next morning, and then Claire got out of Noah's van and headed for her own car. Bella was perched on top of the Charger's trunk; Peter stood beside her, playing with her fingers. _Oh _brother_! _Claire thought, and cleared her throat to let them know she was there. They looked around at her and Bella hastily pulled her hand away, but all Claire said was, "Peter, Dad needs your help getting Hart into the van; he can't move an unconscious guy by himself."

"Sure thing." Peter handled the guy's hundred-odd pounds of dead weight as easily as anyone else would lift a cat, and dumped him unceremoniously through the Primatech van's rear door. "There you go. Noah – good seeing you again."

"Likewise," Noah replied as they shook hands like they hadn't gotten into a fight less than one hour ago. "Claire-Bear-"

"Bye, Dad," she interrupted. Did he _have _to call her that in front of Bella? Then Claire remembered she wasn't going to see Bella for she didn't know how long after tomorrow, so it didn't matter. But still. "See you at home, Peter. Bella, are you riding back with me or what?"

"How else would I get home?"

"I bet Peter would take you."

"I wasn't intending to, but I could if that's what she wants…" Peter glanced between the two girls, picking up on their tension even though he was mostly oblivious to the unfolding girl-drama. "Or I could take both of you-"

"I have to drive my car back home," Claire snapped. "Coming, Bella?"

"I'm coming."

They got in the car and headed for Forks, and Claire knew she needed to make the most of this opportunity to have some serious girl-to-girl talk with Bella about the ethics of hooking up with your best friend's uncle behind her back, but somehow the right words to broach the subject just wouldn't come.

Eventually Bella said, "Claire… Look, I'm sorry you're mad, but…but can't we talk about this?"

The blonde's hands clenched on the steering wheel; it was obvious Bella knew exactly what she was in the proverbial doghouse for, and _now _she wanted to talk, did she? "Yeah, let's talk, Bella. Hey, if we'd done that earlier, I wouldn't be mad now! So yeah, talk."

Bella took a moment to answer, but Claire kept her eyes on the road – she didn't quite trust herself to look at Bella without wanting to bloody her nose again. "What… I don't know what you mean," Bella said uncertainly.

"You and Peter," Claire hissed. "Did it really never once cross your mind that that's the kind of thing I might like to know about?"

"Claire, I'm sorry! It's not like I wanted this to happen – I just…can't help what I feel, you know."

Claire struck the wheel in frustration; why couldn't Bella see that what happened between her and Peter didn't matter? It was the lies by omission, from the two people she trusted most in the world no less, that left Claire feeling like she'd had a knife stuck in her back – and she would _feel _that even if it didn't cause her any pain. "I know you can't," she growled. "Ugh, I don't even care about that! What makes me so mad I could put my fist through the wall is that you and Peter had to go and hide stuff from me. You could've just told me you were together – it's not like I'd have tried to break you up or something! Do you really think I'm that much of a bitch?"

Bella remained silent so long that Claire wondered whether she intended to say anything at all, then finally stammered out, "I- Claire, you've- What I'm trying to say is that you have the wrong idea. There's nothing going on between me and Peter."

The ex-cheerleader turned to gape at her friend. Was Bella lying through her teeth? No, that wasn't her style. But if what she said was the truth, then something weird was going on here… "There's not?" Claire double-checked.

Bella said nothing, but her face gave Claire all the answer she needed – after all, if Bella and Peter _were _together, then why would she look so despondent right now? Surely being Peter's girlfriend wouldn't be that depressing.

"But you do have feelings for him."

"Yes, I do, I…I love him."

That was understandable – what girl wouldn't love Peter? "Then how come there isn't anything going on between you two? You love him and he loves you – seems like there should be."

Bella shook her head. "You don't understand. Peter- Peter doesn't love me. He said I didn't interest him that way, that I'm too young."

"Well yeah, you should be…you really aren't, though." It was true; psychologically Bella _was _'older' than a lot of kids her age. She certainly wasn't too young to love Peter, or for him to love her, yet neither of them seemed to realize that. Well, maybe all they needed was a little more time – with Claire leaving in the morning, they'd have plenty of that. She knew they'd be happy together once they got past the age gap issue, and the thought pleased and saddened her at the same time. _Of course I want Peter and Bella to be happy, but when they are…will they want me to come back then?_

**As a special treat for you guys, here's a sneak peek at my ideas for the next chapter of Resilience:**

"We can't just leave Claire here!" Bella cried.

"We have to," Matt snapped. "She'll be fine, but we can't hang around here waiting for her to heal. Daphne, can you stay with her?"

Daphne nodded, glad for an excuse to sit the fight out, and dragged Claire's body over to the wall while Matt, Peter, and Bella went on their way. No sooner had they gone, however, than someone else approached: Knox, his gun at the ready!

Recognizing her, he lowered it. "Well, look who it is – and you got Claire! Good work. Now let's take her to the boss."

Daphne gulped; the thought of going near Arthur Petrelli terrified her, but she couldn't see a way out unless… unless she let Knox take Claire and ran. She was good at running away, but she was supposed to be one of the good guys now…

"C'mon, Daphne. What are you afraid of?"


	8. You Can't Go Home Again

**I apologize for the shortness of this chapter, and for making Peter so freaking clueless! Maybe he's just a little rusty at reading the opposite sex? **

Part VIII: You Can't Go Home Again

_Peter & Claire – en route to SeaTac Airport_

"Why are we driving? We could've just teleported."

"We could've," Peter agreed, "but then there'd be no time to ask what's behind your sudden urge to go back to California with Noah. You wouldn't even speak to him for _weeks-_"

"I wanna see Mom and Lyle," Claire interrupted, opting for a half-truth; no way was she going to admit her real reason to Peter, especially since she'd been dead wrong.

He treated her to a skeptical frown. "You never kept in touch with them either."

Claire crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the windshield, hoping that telepathy was at least partly dependent on eye contact. "I don't have to explain myself to you! What's with the third degree anyway?"

"Nothing. Sorry."

Neither of them spoke again until the airport was in sight; then Peter said, "I'll miss you," so quietly that Claire almost didn't catch it.

"I'll miss you too, but it's not like I'm leaving you all alone down there. You'll have Bella."

"That's true."

Claire searched Peter's face for any reaction to her last words, but his expression was inscrutable. _Is it possible he really has no clue how she feels about him? Of course he doesn't – it's not like she'd ever _say _anything! And he can't read her mind… What a mess! _She sneaked a glance at him, wondering if maybe he'd picked up her thoughts, but he seemed to have noticed nothing. Well, he _did _try to respect the privacy of her mind as much as he could… _And it isn't exactly my place to push them together – even if someone needs to!_

Little did Claire know that Peter had in fact heard part of what she'd been thinking, and promptly discounted it as ridiculous. Bella was far from shy around him these days – if she felt anything for him, she would've said so when the subject came up at the diner last Saturday…wouldn't she?

_Not that she'd ever think of me as more than a friend anyway; Bella knows better than that. Claire must be imagining things, _Peter decided, and put the issue out of his mind.

###

Noah and Claire's trip passed without incident – or much conversation – until Noah parked outside a completely unfamiliar apartment building. "What're we doing here?" Claire asked.

"This is where I've been…staying…for a while," Noah awkwardly replied.

"Why? Can't you work from home?"

"Well, Claire…"

"Dad! What's going on?" she demanded, worried now. "What happened to Mom?"

"Your mother's fine," Noah told her rather abruptly. "She kicked me out after you left."

"_What?_"

Noah got out of the car, popped the trunk, and began unloading Claire's luggage while she stayed where she was, too stunned to even undo her seatbelt. He was on the outer stairs leading to the second story before she mustered the presence of mind to follow him.

He rebuffed all her attempts at questioning him throughout dinner – which consisted of Japanese takeout. Finally, she'd had enough. "Dad, when are you gonna tell me what happened between you and Mom? It's too huge a deal for you not to give me _any _explanation."

"You're right, Claire-Bear."

When Noah said nothing else for a long moment, a cold lump seemed to settle in the pit of Claire's stomach. "It's because of me, isn't it?" she whispered. "Because I left. Right, Dad?"

Noah wished fervently that he could say no, or at least say something to mitigate the guilt he read in her face, but her assumption was true…

_Flashback – the day Claire and Peter left Costa Verde_

Sandra Bennet knew something was dreadfully wrong the minute she entered the living room, just from Noah's dejected posture as he sat on the couch. The too-even tone of his voice when he said, "Hi, honey," only served to confirm her suspicion.

"What happened, Noah? Is it Claire?"

Lyle sighed; of _course_ it was Claire! Ever since that radioactive jerk had burned down their house, it seemed like everything centered around Claire – they'd moved to California and changed their surname to protect Claire and now, if his dad's expression was any indication, they might have to do it all over again. "What'd Claire do now? Where is she?" _Probably up in her room, angsting over whatever-_

"She's gone."

"Gone!" Sandra exclaimed. "Gone where?"

"I don't know where. All I know is that she came here with Peter Petrelli earlier, packed her bags, and left with him."

"Lyle, go to your room, please. Your father and I need to have a talk – in private."

Lyle left the room, tramped noisily up the stairs, and then crept back down to eavesdrop. Something was going on, and he wanted to find out what.

Once Lyle was out of earshot (or so she thought) Sandra burst out, "This is about that man, Sylar, isn't it? Claire left because of whatever you have going with him! How could you let this happen, Noah?"

_End Flashback_

"…It was a couple more days before she told me one of us was going to have to leave, but that was where it all started," Noah finished with a sigh.

Claire automatically reached for his hand, squeezing it hard. "Dad…I am so, _so _sorry. The way I just took off without a word to anyone – it was stupid, I-"

"Don't blame yourself, Claire. It was my fault you needed to go. After everything I've done to this family, I can't say I blame your mother for having had enough."

"Life sucks sometimes," Claire said dully. Noah nodded, and for the next hour the two Bennets sat on the apartment's nondescript threadbare sofa, never speaking, just taking cold comfort from one another's presence.

###

Claire went to bed shortly after one AM, expecting to go out like a light thanks to jet lag; somehow, it never happened. In spite of what Noah said – and the part of her that agreed that his brief stint as Sylar's partner was the real cause – another part of her brain kept insisting that it _was _her fault he and Sandra split – that it had always been her fault.

_Everything they've been through – running from the Company, Dad losing his job, us having to go into hiding – none of it would've happened if it wasn't for me. I caused all this, because I'm a freak… They'd have been better off if they'd never adopted me-_

She ran her hands over her face hard to cut off those things she didn't want to think but couldn't help thinking. The room seemed too close, although she knew it was really the weight of all that guilt that was smothering her. _I need air! I've gotta get out of here._

Unlocking the deadbolt _and _the chain on the door would make too much noise, so Claire raised the window, lowered herself out until she was only hanging on to the sill by her fingertips, and then simply let go. She bounced off the prickly top of a bush directly below the window, which at least spared her the trouble of pushing broken bones back into place when she tumbled to the ground. She was off and running before her scrapes had fully healed.

There was no place in particular that Claire wanted to go; she just jogged aimlessly by the side of the road, breathing in time with the _slap-slap_ of her sneakers on the blacktop, losing herself in the rhythm…

…Till it was broken by her foot coming down on something that skidded out from under it, sending her face-first into the highway – right in front of an eighteen-wheeler! The half-asleep driver, his mind on nothing other than a steaming cup of coffee at the nearest rest stop, never saw the girl on the road's edge. He felt a jarring thump as his vehicle mowed over her, but wrote it off as some kind of large animal and carefully avoided looking in the rearview mirror as he sped on. He'd always hated seeing the blood and guts spattered across half the lane…

It was lucky he didn't look back, not only because realizing he'd hit a person would have wrecked his nerves, but also because Claire would have had a lot of explaining to do if he'd seen her snap her spine back into place, shove the glistening ropes of an intestine or two back inside her stomach so the skin could grow back, and exclaim in dismay at the bloodstains covering her shirt. "Great, just _great_! Now I'll have to take care of this before Dad sees it! Jerk!" she shouted after the retreating truck.

Claire was looking around for the beer bottle she'd tripped on, intending to vent her outrage by hurling it against a tree, when someone called her name. She wasn't sure she wanted to see who, because there was no way they were just another insomniac out for a late-night jog; she was positive the road had been deserted except for her a second ago.

"Claire, is that you?" the guy called again.

She spun to face him, and her jaw dropped. "_West Rosen_? What are you doing here?"

"Um, I live here." Although he didn't actually say 'duh', it was written all over his face. "I thought you were supposed to live here too, but I haven't seen you around for a while."

"I was out of town visiting family – my other family."

"Would that be the lizard half of your family?"

Claire rolled her eyes at the old joke. "No, it's my biological family. The Bennets – Butlers, to you – adopted me when I was a baby. Anyway, I was staying with my uncle, but I came back 'cause I didn't want to hang around while he gets together with my best friend and then when I get here, I find out my parents have split and it's all my fault!" She inhaled deeply, trying to stop herself from bursting into tears in front of her ex.

West cringed. "Ouch; that sucks."

"My sentiments exactly."

"Wanna get away from all that crap?"

"I'd love to, but I can't," Claire said wearily. "That's why I was jogging out here, but the crap stuck with me. And that was _before _I became temporary roadkill."

West smirked and held out his hand. "I could take you farther away than this highway. Downtown LA's a great place to forget a bad day – I go there all the time."

It was a tempting offer, but Claire didn't take his outstretched hand right away. "Why? Didn't I break up with you last time we talked?"

"You did," West admitted. "I guess I'm hoping to change your mind. I missed you, Claire."

Claire still hesitated; everything in her life felt so up in the air right now, she was pretty sure the _last _thing she needed was to date. Going to LA for one night, on the other hand, seemed harmless… "How about I go with you tonight, and reserve judgment on the 'us getting back together' part?"

West eagerly accepted this deal, and as he soared off with her he felt confident that persuading her to be his girlfriend again would be fairly easy after tonight. If he'd been a telepath as well as a flier he might not have been so sure, because Claire wasn't considering their 'relationship' at all, or even thinking about him – not really. All she was thinking of was how nice it was to have someone, _anyone_, she could hang out with who didn't make her feel guilty or in the way; who it was didn't make much difference to her.

**Well looky-look, Claire's being somewhat self-destructive again. Team 'I Hate West' readers can rest assured that this is ****not**** a C/W fic – I only had her meet him because he does still live in Costa Verde, but as you know from Resurgence he's never seen or heard from again after Claire goes back to Forks.**

**For those of you who can't wait to see how Bella's fight with Arthur Petrelli turns out, here's a preview of Resilience chapter five (insert drumroll):**

_(BPOV)_

It all happened too fast for my mind to keep up. One minute I was pouring everything I had into my shield, just trying to resist Arthur's attempt at tearing my ability out of my very _DNA_; the next, my shield mutated into a tangibly solid thing, expanding outward beyond my control – and forcing Arthur backward out of the space it filled. He was blasted all the way down the hall and when he reached the end, the back of his skull crunched sickeningly against the stone planter that held the plastic sago palm I'd crouched behind a moment ago.

Determined not to let him regenerate and catch me again, I blocked his healing ability… and then collapsed, dizzy and shaking. However I'd done it, solidifying my shield had taken a _lot_ out of me.

Once I could breathe I got slowly to my feet and inched toward the elevators, keeping an eye on Arthur to make sure he didn't come to. He never did, so I paused just long enough to retrieve my necklace. "That's mine, you son of a bitch."


	9. Love Her or Leave Her?

**First things first: I'd like to thank a certain impatient reader (you know who you are!) for telling me to update already – you can thank her for me posting this tonight instead of tomorrow afternoon – and for putting up with my cruel practical jokes.**

**Second, about Resilience: yes I'll do my best to update it by this weekend. However, I've realized that I goofed by saying that the next chapter will be about Edward; there's one more about Bella and co. in my mental map of the story before I get back to the Cullens – and it will be ALL of the Cullens, not just Edward! Just be a little patient with me please. **

**Third, about this chapter: the first few paragraphs are very stream-of-consciousness, my attempt at going as far inside Peter's head as I feel able to. The beginning takes place between Resurgence chapters 17-18 and everything after the asterisks is after ch18 with a line or two from the end of the chapter itself. **

Part IX: Love Her or Leave Her?

_Sometime past midnight_

Ask Peter Petrelli what his biggest problems were, and insomnia wouldn't normally rank…except for tonight. How was he supposed to sleep when he couldn't close his eyes without seeing Laurent's head separate from his body, and remembering that he, Peter, had done that? Common sense said it had only been self-defense – any of the many lawyers in the Petrelli family would agree – but common sense couldn't silence the internal little voice that persisted in whispering that it had been murder.

_But does it count as murder, _Peter wondered, _if the 'victim' wasn't human? _That was another thing keeping him awake: Laurent had been a _vampire_! Vampires existed! What the hell kind of world was it where creatures like that were anything more than superstitions? The same kind where people could fly, move things by sheer force of will, go from place to place without crossing the distance between, or any of the other things that should be impossible but that Peter did every day, obviously.

Paradoxically, it was also very different. Peter _was _human, just not a completely ordinary one – and who made the rules for what was and wasn't 'ordinary' anyway? Humans were humans even if certain people _(Sylar…and you too, almost, sometimes) _stretched the definition of humanity to its breaking point; on the other side of that line was Laurent, who plainly hadn't possessed any shred of humanity at all. That animalistic bloodlust in his maroon eyes – the color of dried blood – that was clearly all he'd been: an animal. That was Peter's interpretation because he _needed_ to see it that way or be eaten up with guilt over what he'd done to Laurent…

…Especially since he knew that sooner or later he'd have to do it all _(kill somebody else, chop their body into pieces and burn it)_ over again. Another vampire was on her way here to kill Bella, and without consciously reaching the decision Peter knew he would never let anything hurt her – as he'd proved tonight. Hurting Bella was obviously what Laurent had had in mind when he sprang at her, so Peter hadn't given it a second's thought before whacking the vampire's head off.

And now his thoughts had turned to the one thing he'd been trying to divert them from all night; homicidal vampires seemed easier to deal with than the human girl sleeping across the hall. _How did everything get so messed up with her? _Thinking back, it all started when she kissed him and then he kissed her back. _Just what was I thinking doing that? _Quite clearly he _hadn't _been thinking! His mind had gone blank the instant her lips touched his; when she'd pulled away instinct had kicked in, making him hold her there and kiss her, and it had felt so _right _although now that his head had cleared he knew exactly how wrong it was – that was why, although Peter had realized after last weekend that he loved Bella, he'd never let himself consider that he might be _in _love with her.

Now it appeared that he shouldn't be, because (aside from the obvious reasons) Bella Swan wasn't who Peter had thought she was. She was a…what, a vampire groupie? Giving her the benefit of the doubt, Peter assumed her former boyfriend was somehow different from the snarling, blood-crazed Laurent, except how different could he have been? Vampires might have their own distinct personalities – he'd have to ask Bella about that – but underneath they were all the same species, just like humans, weren't they? They were all blood-drinkers, and imagining Bella _with _one of them… Realizing that the lips that had kissed a vampire were the same ones she'd pressed to Peter's mouth was very unsettling, almost sickening. There had to be something very wrong with the girl. As if that wasn't damning enough, she'd chosen to keep that part of her past hidden from her so-called 'best friends' even though they'd shared their most dangerous secrets with her.

_She didn't trust us – didn't trust _me_ – to believe her. How can she say she loves me when she doesn't trust me? After tonight, how can _I _trust _her_? If I can't, does that mean I can't love her either? _Do _I love her…in the way she wants?_

Bella's piercing shrieks shattered both the stillness of the night and Peter's concentration, and of course he ran to check on her although she'd started screaming twice tonight with no more cause than her nightmares. This time proved to be no different, except that this time when Peter opened the door of the bedroom that was usually Claire's and was temporarily Bella's he found Bella on the floor, legs tangled in her covers, which she'd half dragged off the bed with her, rubbing the side of her head.

"How'd you get down there?"

"Fell out of bed," Bella sheepishly admitted. "I'm fine." She freed her legs from the sheets and stood unsteadily, staring down so as not to meet Peter's scrutinizing gaze. "You can go back to bed now. Sorry for waking you up."

He started to tell her that he hadn't been asleep, then thought better of it. "This is the third time you've done that. You can't sleep, can you?"

Staring at the carpet as though trying to burn a hole through it, Bella slowly shook her head.

"Is it-" Peter almost said 'vampires', hesitated at the last second, and instead said "-Laurent?"

At the sound of Laurent's name, Bella's knees shook and she collapsed on the edge of Claire's bed. "Yes. Him and - and Victoria." She uttered the female vampire's name in a whisper; Victoria obviously scared the living daylights out of her.

Peter sat down beside Bella, who still refused to make eye contact with him. "Hey, what's so bad about this Victoria chick that she's got you scared stiff of her?"

_That _made Bella look up. "What's so bad about her?" she repeated incredulously. "She's a vampire, that's what!"

"I thought you liked vampires?"

Bella jumped up and began furiously pacing the room. "Well, you thought wrong! I liked the _Cullens_. Vampires in general are too scary for me."

"And the Cullens aren't?"

"Sure they are, just not in the same way. They…oh, I can't explain it right now! I'm so tired I can't think, but I can't sleep-"

"Why not?" _Didn't I tell her I'm not gonna let Victoria near her?_

Bella glared at him. "Because I'm afraid! Not that you'd have any idea what that feels like."

Peter wanted to snap that she shouldn't talk about things she didn't understand – he'd been very afraid back when his powers first manifested and he couldn't control them and, oh yeah, _exploded_ – but, figuring that he had already said enough things to Bella that he would regret in the morning, he bit his tongue. Instead he said, "Look, why don't I get you something to help you sleep?"

"I don't take-" Bella protested; Peter cut her off.

"Nothing's going to happen tonight – there's no reason for you to stay awake."

Bella grumbled a bit more, but caved much quicker than she would if she'd had any energy left and accepted the Valium Peter offered her. Once she had swallowed the pill and crawled into bed he turned to go back to his own room, only to be stopped by her grabbing his wrist. "Wait! Stay…just until I get to sleep…please?" When he hesitated she pressed on, "It'll be easier if you're here. Please, Peter?"

Giving in, he sat on the edge of her bed with a sigh. "All right, just until you're asleep."

Bella lay down and flashed a quick smile up at him before closing her eyes. "Thank you…for staying, and for saving me. It was the best thing anyone's ever done for me…"

"Anyone who could've taken on Laurent would've done the same," Peter replied, embarrassed despite that the Valium should be kicking in by now and Bella probably didn't realize what she was saying.

"'M not talking about that," she mumbled, voice slurring as the drug worked on her. "I meant…everything…the way you make me feel…"

"How's that?" He desperately wanted to know in case it might provide some insight as to what was going on inside her head when she had kissed him.

Unfortunately she was almost completely out now, so that her next words were hardly intelligible; he couldn't be sure, but he thought she said 'not like crap'. Then the last of her consciousness faded, leaving Peter to wonder what she meant by that, assuming he'd understood her correctly. He already knew that she had been deeply depressed over Edward Cullen leaving her; that must be what made her feel like crap, unless she had some _other _issues that Peter hadn't yet learned about – which hardly seemed probable. And she had admitted to feeling better after sharing her Edward problem with him. _So that's it: she's just grateful that I was there for her, and somehow she's gotten it confused with love. _

This conclusion came as something of a relief to Peter – it wasn't like he wanted Bella Swan to be in love with him after all. Even if she had been she'd probably reconsidered after their fight earlier, for which he knew he owed her an apology; he might have had some legitimate ground for being upset by her keeping vampires' existence a secret – especially since he'd gotten his throat ripped out by one of those vampires while protecting _her_ – but still he'd been much too harsh, suggesting that she was as manipulative as Angela. Seriously, Angela Petrelli! Compared to the woman who had tried to use him as a human bomb, been part of the impetus behind the creation of the Shanti virus, poisoned her own husband and coolly lied to her sons about it, and who knew what else… Well, next to her Bella looked like a saint.

_I'll apologize to her in the morning, and she'll either forgive me and we'll be friends again or she won't. If she doesn't… I'll stick around as much as I need to to keep Victoria from getting to her; otherwise she can have her space, keep whatever parts of her life she wants to herself. _Things between him and Bella were so screwed up right now anyway that a little more distance between them might not be such a bad thing.

###

Unfortunately the best time to distance yourself from someone isn't when she needs your protection from a vampire who just happens to be hell-bent on killing her. And teaching the person in question how to telepathically contact you is definitely not the way to go about putting more space between yourself and her. Still, Bella needed a fast way of letting Peter know if Victoria attacked her when he wasn't around, and what was faster than thought?

Also they had decided to try getting things back to how they had been before those dratted vampires came along and messed it all up, so why shouldn't they go back to what had begun their friendship in the first place: the two of them working on Bella's ability? It was a nice theory, but one that failed to take into account the Bella factor.

"I know you, Bella Swan, and there's not much you can't do when you really want to," he told her, forgetting that a major source of discord between them was that, for whatever reason, she wanted more than his friendship now.

_I'm glad one of us thinks so, _she 'said', and along with the words Peter got a sense of some mischievous emotion in her – thought-speak often conveyed more feelings than regular speech – and then suddenly her shield was back, pushing Peter out, making her mind completely her own once more. "...And right now I've decided I really want to kiss you again."

Then she _was _kissing him again and he was kissing her and it was thrilling and electrifying and so wrong that it had to be stopped soon even though that was the last thing Peter wanted to do, because if he didn't it would only make things worse in the long run. Bearing that in mind, he took Bella firmly by the shoulders and pushed her away; their lips parted audibly due to her unwillingness to end the kiss. "Bella, you've gotta stop doing this!"

A defiantly stubborn look Peter had seen occasionally when Bella was faced with any difficult problem and determined to beat it crept into her face. "No."

_"No?" _he echoed. "What do you mean 'no'?"

"I mean 'no, I won't stop it'," Bella calmly replied. "Not unless you can convince me that you really want me to."

Frustrated, Peter opted not to argue the point; he didn't need to read Bella's mind to know that telling her he didn't want her to kiss him again wouldn't be enough. She wasn't going to give up until he got a grip and stopped kissing _her_. Instead he asked, "Why are you doing this, huh? What's gotten into you?"

Blood rushed to Bella's face, staining her pale cheeks scarlet. "I'm in love with you. You…feel something for me, I can tell. Maybe not love, not yet, but-"

"That's the problem – I do love you! Even after I had to kill Laurent for you and part of me hated you for making me cross that line, I knew if I went back there I'd do it all over again, and when Victoria gets here I _will _do it all over again, so don't tell me I don't love you, dammit!"

Silence fell; Bella was too shocked to speak, while Peter didn't trust himself to. After a long moment and several deep breaths he went on, "But I'm not your boyfriend – I can't be, so will you quit pushing it?"

Rather than answering, Bella asked a question of her own: "Why can't you?"

"You know why."

"You mean what you said in the diner – the age thing?" She scoffed. "I'm eighteen, Peter; it's not like I'm jailbait!"

"You're the Chief's daughter – you'll be jailbait when you're thirty," he retorted. "Anyway I don't mind that you're younger than me; it's more that I'm questioning your judgment right now."

She made an exasperated noise in the back of her throat. "Because of Edward?"

"No, not because of Edward; or at least not only because of him."

"Then what's your problem with my judgment?"

"Last weekend when I brought you back here from the diner, you were crying and I- Well, you remember. And I can't help wondering-"

Bella folded her arms across her chest. "If that somehow made me think I love you when I really don't?" Anger sharpened her voice; did he really think her self-awareness was so lacking?

"I hope not…but if that is what's going on in your head it'd be wrong for me to take advantage of it."

Bella sighed. "As happy as I am to know you don't want to take advantage of me, I'm honestly _not _confusing how I feel with gratitude for everything you've done for me. How can I convince you…? Ah!" She suddenly sat bolt upright as some new idea hit her. "Peter, if I unshield my mind again, will you read it?"

"Just a few minutes ago you were afraid to let me read your mind," he reminded her, confused by this abrupt turnaround.

Trepidation showed in her eyes, but she shook it off. "I'll bring what I want you to see to the front of my mind – just read that, and don't…probe any deeper." She shivered. "Please, Peter. You don't know how hard it is for me to do this. I couldn't if I didn't absolutely trust you."

There it was: an offer that couldn't be refused. As Peter gazed into the chocolate-colored pools that were Bella's eyes, her shield pulled away very slowly like the peel off of a fruit, and then Peter's mind was flooded with a rush of images and sensations, past and current, that weren't his. First came her instinctive nervousness at his telepathic touch in her mind, and then… It was too hurried for him to get a detailed, concrete picture of anything, but he did get an impression of what the Cullens looked like – their physical appearance as well as the way Bella saw them – and knew that through her eyes they hadn't been monstrous at all.

More than that, Bella's feelings for Edward Cullen impressed themselves on the empath so deeply that, for the few seconds he was in her mind, they might as well have been his own emotions; he experienced her awe and fascination and love for Edward (albeit tainted with an undercurrent of her own inadequacy and unworthiness of _his_ love), the way the vampire had become the center of her life…

…And the aching void it had become when he left, how pointless Bella's life had seemed without him – so pointless that in fact she had stopped living for months and merely _existed_, the bleak emptiness of the future gaping at her like a black hole-

Then, not wanting to revisit that time, she skipped ahead to what Peter was really interested in: her feelings towards him…which were remarkably similar to what she'd felt for Edward. So similar that there was no room to doubt that she did indeed love Peter – and her love was so powerfully absorbing (obsessive, even) that he shied away from it – but the reasons behind it were different enough that he couldn't dismiss it as confusion or as her just being sick of loneliness any longer.

At last Bella fought through the chaotic whirlwind of feeling that concentrating on those memories had evoked in her so that she was able to string together an actual coherent _thought_ for Peter to read. _After Edward left I thought it was all over for me; I thought I had no reason to live anymore until you came along and gave me a purpose again, showed me that I wasn't weak and totally useless-_

"I never thought you were useless, and y_ou_ showed me that you weren't weak when you asked me to train you," Peter corrected her, out loud rather than via thought-speak. He could have transferred his thoughts directly into her mind as easily as reading from it but chose to save that for some time when silent communication was necessary, or until she gave him permission to do it – not that he expected her to reach that point for a long time.

"But I never would've asked about learning to use my ability if I hadn't seen all the stuff you did with yours because – don't take this the wrong way – you're only human like me, but you've still saved the world _more than once_, and you're-" She broke off, blushing again, looked down at the floor, and finished silently. _You're my inspiration, Peter, you're…my hero. _That's _what I love you for – for who you are and the things you've done because of who you are, and because you gave me a reason to live again after I'd given up on life. I guess you could say that you _are _my life now. _"Well?" she asked nervously. "Do you get it now?"

Peter got it, and showed her that he got it by pulling her close and kissing her like he'd never kissed her before; this time instead of simply responding to her he took the initiative, drinking in her taste and finally enjoying it, with none of those pesky moral concerns in the way.

It was what she had been waiting for. Her fingers brushed his cheek and tangled in his hair, while her tongue flicked over his lips…

Then their oxygen ran out, forcing them to break apart so they could breathe – and they were both breathing hard now – but even then they didn't let go of each other. Whether it was precognition or just normal human intuition, Peter somehow knew they wouldn't be letting go any time soon.


	10. Peter and the Wolves

**OK, my computer crashing caused a slight hiccup in writing this chapter but I finally got it done - hopefully up to par. Correspondence to Resurgence is ch19-20: Peter POV on the first encounter with the werewolf pack. Enjoy!**

Part X: Peter and the Wolves

_Seattle, WA_

It was 3:04 PM, and Peter was heading to the nearest bar with some coworkers who got off at the same time when his cell phone rang. Probably Bella – she called him a lot these days, and there weren't many other people who had his number. There was Claire, but he hadn't heard from her in over a week. Neither had Bella. It was actually getting a little worrying…

The phone rang again. Peter took the call, intending to tell Bella that he was going to have a drink with some people from work and would call her back later. "Bella, I-"

"Peter."

The urgent voice stopped Peter short of saying 'can't talk right now', because it didn't belong to Bella. "Chief Swan?" he asked, understandably surprised. If Bella called him almost too often, her father never did - which was just as well, since every time Peter saw or spoke to Charlie Swan he felt a quick stab of guilt for seeing the man's daughter behind his back.

"Listen Peter, we just heard at the station that another hiker's gone missing," Charlie said hurriedly, the strain evident in his voice. "I'd thought we were done with this bear business!"

_So did I,_ Peter thought grimly. _It should've been over with Laurent gone. If someone else disappeared today, it must mean the other vamp's here, the one that sent Laurent ahead as her scout – I have to get to Bella before she does! _First he had to get rid of Charlie. "That's unfortunate," he said as calmly as he could manage. "Why are you telling me about it?"

"Because Bella isn't home yet and I can't wait for her-"

"-So you want me to?" Peter finished for him.

"If it's not too much trouble," Charlie said gruffly; he wasn't terribly comfortable asking anyone for a favor, but too worried for his daughter's safety not to. "Tell her I'll be late getting in and whatever you do, _don't let her leave the house_."

"I won't." This was a lie; with little or no knowledge of Victoria - more importantly of what special abilities she might have - Peter knew it would be stupid to go looking for her without Bella along for backup...just in case.

###

Twenty minutes later he wondered whether bringing her had been a mistake - not because the vampire hunt was too dangerous but because it was beginning to seem like a waste of time. Using his telepathy to 'scan' the forest, Peter hadn't yet come across anything that sounded remotely like a vampire's thoughts; plenty of cops, but no vamps. At last, just when he was about to tell Bella that Victoria had apparently left the area and suggest that they go back, something different flashed through his mind: _Bella Swan! _

_There's no reason for her to be out here. _

_Yeah, but that's her scent! I have to find her..._

The mental 'voices' didn't sound female; neither did they sound _human_. They were completely alien, yet also...familiar? Something Peter had encountered before? But _where_? It had to have been out here, and there was only one other time he'd gone into these woods...

He landed and set Bella back on her feet but kept hold of her. _What's the matter? _she wanted to know; her thought-speak conveyed her awareness of his tension and confusion as to its cause. Taking advantage of her mind's temporary openness, Peter accessed her memory and showed her what was the matter: a strange intelligence that seemed to be comprised of several individual threads of consciousness, though with nothing 'individual' about it at all. Instead, it looked like Peter and Bella had just discovered the ultimate hive mind, a perfect example of group-think gone to unprecedented extremes.

Now Bella was a little tense herself. _Them again? _

_Yeah, and this time one of the…things…is tracking us. It, or he, or whatever, thought something about catching your scent-_

_My _scent_? _There was a definite undertone of fear in that thought. _What _are_ these things?_

_I don't know, but this time we're not leaving till we find out. _Especially not if they - whatever _they _were - knew Bella. _The last thing we need is something else trying to kill her; the girl's a damn monster magnet! _That was one thought Peter refrained from sending to her, though, as he doubted she'd appreciate it. He pulled her over to a large oak and, with its trunk at their backs, they waited for the appearance of the thing...

...Which turned out to be a wolf, but not any kind of wolf Peter had ever seen at the New York Zoo. In fact he didn't even know wolves like this existed, unless a mad scientist somewhere had decided to experiment with the effects of steroids on wild animals. The thing looked more or less like a normal wolf, except that it was bigger than a bear. And then there was the fact that it was _thinking_ hard and clear - Peter was a hundred percent certain _that _wasn't normal for a wolf either.

The Franken-wolf edged slowly around the tree, nose twitching as it sniffed; then its head swiveled toward where Bella was hiding invisibly with Peter, which was more than her nerves could take. She let out a scream to wake the dead, and the wolf crouched to spring at her despite that it couldn't actually see her.

Keeping his arm wrapped tightly around her waist, Peter flew up and over the wolf's back in the instant before it pounced, caught a fistful of its fur, and teleported to the Swans' backyard. There he let go of Bella and the wolf, but kept the latter telekinetically pinned to the ground as he searched its mind for some clue as to why it had tracked Bella, or even just what the hell it was... Until Bella yelled, "Stop!" and Peter abruptly found himself shut out of the animal's mind - his girlfriend had decided to protect the creature.

She took a step closer to it but Peter, who had already seen inside its head enough to know that this was no ordinary animal, caught her arm, restraining her. "Stay back, Bella, there's something wrong with it!"

"What are you-?" she began, only to break off as it became obvious what he was saying. The wolf shuddered violently; its shape shrank and distorted until it wasn't a wolf at all - instead a naked human male lay on the grass. Bella stared at it - no, _him_ - for a long second in which nobody moved or breathed; then her bulging eyes rolled up in her skull and she crumpled to the ground like a castoff sock puppet.

The wolf-boy scrambled to his feet, never taking his eyes off her. "What happened? Is she okay?"

Peter knelt beside her, checked her wrist for a pulse and made sure she was breathing. "She's fine - just fainted."

"Fainted!" the boy exclaimed. "What happened to her?"

"Shock. Might have something to do with seeing a wolf turn into a human right in front of her - you don't get too many of those even around here," Peter said drily. The boy gaped as though unable to comprehend how he could be so sarcastic when Bella had just fainted on him. Peter sighed and said, "She'll be fine. I'm a paramedic; I've seen people pass out before."

"So aren't you gonna pour water on her face, or slap her or something?"

"No, she'll come around soon enough on her own. All I need to do is get her inside and put her down somewhere till she wakes up. You should come inside too - wouldn't want any of the neighbors to see you like that."

###

Peter carried Bella - who was as limp as she'd been the first night he met her, when he had pulled her off the parking lot outside Newton's - into her house, laid her on the couch, and sat on the edge of one of its cushions beside her. After a couple minutes the wolf-boy joined them, now wearing a pair of cutoff jeans and a black t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. His eyes went straight to Bella as he entered the room. "Are you _sure _she'll be all right?" he demanded.

"She'll be fine, just give her a minute. So, I take it you know her?"

"Yeah, Bella and I go way back."

"Is that so? Why don't you tell me your name - maybe I'll recognize it."

"Jacob Black."

Peter searched his memory for any instance of Bella mentioning a Jacob Black and came up empty. He thought he recalled meeting someone named Black once, but that had been an older man, and he'd been Charlie's friend, not Bella's. Moving on to the next point of concern, he asked, "How'd you go from a wolf to...the way you are now? Are you some kind of shape-shifter?"

Jacob Black smirked. "Werewolf," he corrected. "Just not the kind with all that full moon and silver bullet crap Hollywood puts out."

"Hollywood screws up a lot," Peter agreed. "Just look at how they misrepresented sharks in _Jaws_."

That definitely threw Jacob Black, though he covered it almost instantly. "You don't seem too freaked by meeting a real-life werewolf. But I guess you wouldn't be - one minute we were in the woods and then we were in Bella's backyard, and you're the one that moved us, aren't you?"

Peter nodded and was about to tell him that it was called teleporting - Hollywood terminology was correct in this case - when Bella moaned softly, eyelids fluttering as she regained consciousness, and Peter abandoned his conversation with the self-styled werewolf in favor of checking on his girlfriend. "Bella? Hey, are you with me?"

This time her eyes opened fully and locked on his. "Peter, thank goodness you're here. I had the craziest dream…"

Jacob crowded in then, looking over Peter's shoulder at her, and she squeezed her eyes shut - evidently Jacob had been part of her 'crazy dream', and she wasn't thrilled to see him in reality as well. "Oh no, not you. Come on, wake up!"

"You're already awake," Peter said impatiently. They had a living, breathing werewolf in the room; it was hardly the optimal time for Bella to pull any more damsel-in-distress fainting stunts. "Open your eyes." When she reluctantly obeyed Peter continued, "This is Jacob Black; he says he's an old family friend of yours."

Bella, with the air of one groping to get back on familiar ground, dipped her head in a hesitant nod. "Yeah, you met his dad, Billy, once when he came over to watch a game with Charlie. I've spent a little time with Jacob before, but I almost don't recognize him now. He used to have longer hair and less… There used to be less of _him_."

"So I've heard. Jacob here also claims to be a werewolf." _And pretty damn proud of it. _Peter rolled his eyes, remembering Jacob's smug expression when he explained what he was - and the way he had deflated slightly when the revelation failed to make Peter fall on his ass in amazement.

Bella, on the other hand, did seem amazed. "So having that giant wolf after us, and it turning into Jacob – all that really happened?"

"I wasn't _after_ you, Bella!" Jacob cut in vehemently before Peter could reply. "I caught your scent out there and followed it to make sure you were okay! You and your friend shouldn't have been out there anyway, there's-" Suddenly changing his mind about whatever he'd almost said, he amended it to, "It's dangerous out there."

However, Peter had a pretty good idea what Jacob had almost said. "Were you about to say 'it's dangerous because there's a vampire hunting around Forks'?" he asked. "'Cause if you were, we already know all about that."

"She told you about them, huh? Gotta say I didn't see that one coming – thought she'd go to her grave protecting those leeches' secret."

"Maybe she would have if Laurent hadn't attacked her. That kinda made it impossible to just shove the cat back in the bag-"

Then everyone began talking at once; Jacob asked who Laurent was, Bella complained loudly about him and Peter talking _about_ her rather than _to_ her, and a new voice - or maybe several voices - piped up inside Peter's head. He had a feeling he needed to pay attention to them but, unable to do so with Bella and Jacob both yammering, held up a hand and snapped, "Shut up! Something's coming."

"That'd be the rest of the pack," Jacob informed him, smugness firmly in place once more. "Our minds are all linked together when we're wolves, and I cut out of the link when I changed back to human. I guess it took them a while to track me since you…got us here so fast, however you did that, but now that they have they're on their way to make sure you haven't killed me."

"And your pack is made up of how many werewolves, exactly?" Bella asked with some trepidation.

"A bunch."

"Oh, _shit_," Peter muttered. This werewolf business wasn't even over yet, and it was already giving him a headache.

His headache only intensified when the rest of the pack arrived. They lost their telepathy when in human form, but he was still able to read their individual minds and therefore knew exactly what they all thought of him. It was no treat to know that - the majority of the werewolves saw him as a freak (some were actually a little afraid of him) just because he was a human who happened to be capable of taking out a vampire on his own. The exceptions were Sam Uley, pack leader, who thought Peter's powers could make him a very useful ally, Seth Clearwater, who was simply wondering whether Peter was a mutant like the X-Men (which, in his opinion, were cool), and Seth's sister Leah, whose mind was on Bella: _Quit staring at me, bitch!_

Peter's lip curled angrily and he was just about to project his own comment into Leah's brain - something about the pot calling the kettle bitchy - when Bella stood up and asked if anyone wanted a drink. Everyone did, even 'pack grouches' Leah and Paul, so she scurried off to the kitchen, refusing Peter's offer of help and leaving him in the living room - throwing him to the wolves, in a manner of speaking.

Once Bella was gone, Sam turned to Peter with an air of getting down to business. "Peter - may I call you Peter?" The other nodded, so Sam went on. "Clearly you are...not like other humans...but will you tell me exactly _how_ you killed the vampire?"

Peter said that he would and began recounting the events of that evening, although doing so meant he had to tell the pack a bit more about his abilities than he was strictly comfortable with - if for no other reason than that talking about all the things he could do felt almost like bragging. Multiple powers _were _quite uncommon among posthumans, after all; prior to and during his fight with Laurent he had used several of them. First there was the precognition that had told him Bella was in danger, the clairvoyance that enabled him to locate her, and then he had teleported to the deserted Cullen house, and used his enhanced strength and telekinesis in the actual fight. He'd also regenerated in order to recover from Laurent ripping his throat out, of course.

As Peter told his tale, a few wolves' jaws dropped...and none of them noticed when Jacob slipped out of the room and followed Bella into the kitchen. They even managed not to notice the heated voices issuing from in there - but when Jacob suddenly let out a loud yelp, _that _got their attention. Rushing to investigate, they found Jacob unharmed but dripping with Coke; judging by the empty can in Bella's hand, it had been sprayed on him.

Careful to avoid stepping in the sticky puddle that had rained down onto the floor, Peter moved between the indignantly sputtering Jacob and irate Bella and gently pried the can out of her grasp. "Bella, what was that about?" Something pretty extreme had to have happened, since she wasn't usually the food-throwing type.

"Nothing – Jacob was just being a jerk." Her eyes welled up as the mysterious connection between her temper and her tear ducts kicked in.

Having had some experience of Bella's ire, Peter put his arm around her in an attempt to calm her before she got really mad. It seemed to work - she leaned into his side, visibly soothed - so he turned on Jacob. "What did you say to her?" Perhaps his tone was harsher than necessary, but he was beginning to genuinely dislike the cocky were-mutt.

"I told her if the two of you can't find someone your own age, you should at least keep your hands to yourself or get a room." Jacob stomped out - they heard him bang the front door as he left the house - and Peter was left frowning after him, disapproving of this childish behavior but mainly just wondering, _What the hell is his problem? _

"Don't worry, it's nothing you said," Leah Clearwater assured him. "Jacob used to have some huge crush on your little _girlfriend_. He got used to the fact that he couldn't hang around her after the old Quileute genes kicked in, but he never quite got over knowing he'd lost out to that Cullen; I'm sure Bella told you all about that. Tell me, how's it feel to have the leech's leftovers?"

Peter glared at her in disgust. "Y'know, Bella doesn't have to take your crap in her own house. I think Jacob could use some company out there." He nodded pointedly at the door.

Leah took his advice and left, and Sam grimaced apologetically. "I apologize for them. Jacob's had a difficult time since joining us, and Leah…" He trailed off.

"What about Leah?" When Sam didn't answer, Peter skimmed his thoughts; it was mostly instinct, though curiosity also played a big part in it. _It's all my fault... Leah was never so unpleasant before I dumped her... _That explained a lot. "Bad breakup – well, who hasn't been there?"

Sam did a double take. He'd already known Peter was a telepath; however, knowing and experiencing it were two different things. "That's a very useful talent you have." Being able to read the other wolves' thoughts came in handy when they needed to coordinate, but if they could know what their _enemies _were thinking...

"Can be; it can also be a headache."

Bella shrugged Peter's arm off and excused herself. Seeing that she was still upset over what Jacob and Leah had said, he tried to stop her but she slid away. "You stay and sort things out with Sam; I'll be fine." With a last quick smile at him, she left him alone with the pack once again even though all he wanted was to be alone with her.

"What's left for you and me to sort out?"

"Only what to do when the other vampire returns," Sam replied. "Will you contact me if you see any sign of her?"

Peter quickly agreed, and Sam promised to do the same if he and his pack got wind of Victoria's return first. They exchanged phone numbers; then the pack went out to Bella's backyard to transform. One enormous black wolf, who Peter recognized as Sam, lingered after the others had vanished into the forest. _Just because you've met a vampire once and lived, do not underestimate their kind - especially if the redhead really does intend to take revenge on Bella. Vampires are vicious and crafty predators... Guard the girl well, Peter Petrelli. _

With that Sam was gone, melting into the lengthening shadows of twilight.

**Next up: Claire POV on her return to Forks.**


	11. Escapism

**You should know before reading that this is pretty anti-West. I didn't used to be a West-hater (or have any opinion of the guy, really) but then I read 'A Leap to Safety' by Marcus S Lazarus, who gave such good reasons for not liking Claire and West together that I couldn't help being converted. Actually, I was under the impression most Heroes fans didn't like him, but maybe that's just the Peter/Claire shippers?**

Part XI: Escapism

_Claire & West - Los Angeles_

"Music's great!"

"What?"

"I said the music is great!" Claire repeated, practically screaming in West's ear to make herself heard over the pounding beat. Their dates were usually in quieter places; Claire had only asked to go to this noisy club tonight because she needed someplace that would induce sensory overload...anything to drown out the memory of the day that had just ended.

Today she'd finally worked up the nerve to go see Sandra and Lyle, which she now thought had been a mistake. Things between them had been awkwardly tense; both of the other Bennets had asked questions Claire didn't quite know how to answer, and throughout the whole visit she couldn't shake the feeling that she didn't really belong in the family anymore.

It'd been a relief when they finally said their stiff goodbyes, and even more of a relief when at long last the sun set. Sunset meant the arrival of night, which meant she could go out with West again. Why she looked forward to this so much was a mystery to her, except that West Rosen was the single uncomplicated thing left in her life. There'd been no letup in the guilt she still felt over her part in Noah and Sandra's split - if anything, it had intensified when she saw how often her dad's dinner consisted of Chinese takeout these days.

Going to stay with Sandra wasn't an appealing option either, considering how her mom kept pressing her for answers about what _exactly_ had made her decide to leave Costa Verde, why was she back now, would she be staying, etc. The truth was that Claire wasn't sure if she'd be staying or not. She missed Peter and Bella because she fit in with them, never felt like a freak around them, because they were every bit as freaky as her - Peter even more so. And Bella was slightly odd even without her powers. In fact, more than once Claire had wavered on the point of calling Forks, telling them she wanted to come back home...and each time she'd chickened out. What if they didn't _want _her to come back? What if they were perfectly happy together without her?

So all she really wanted to do at present was just forget the whole messed up situation, and West helped her do that. He could and did take her anywhere she wanted to go, and when they were together it was like being inside a bubble that the real world and all its problems weren't able to penetrate. Even better was that West definitely, without a doubt wanted her around...wanted _her_. Claire was perfectly happy to give him what he wanted as long as he gave her what she needed: an escape.

Now they were off the dance floor, in some darkened corner of the building or maybe outside it, and he was kissing her again and then holding her close while he flew her back to her dad's apartment... But she still didn't really think of him as her boyfriend, in spite of their physical closeness - because it was _just _physical. When she was with him her mind was more often than not miles away, trying to figure out what she intended to do with herself, because she knew her vacation wouldn't last forever no matter how much she might wish it could.

###

Even knowing that, Claire never anticipated the form her reality check would take. Waking up early - thanks to her regeneration she didn't really _need_ much sleep, even after staying out most of the night - she was startled to hear the low hum of voices from the kitchen area. Hearing what went on there wasn't anything new - there was no wall between kitchen and living room in this apartment - it was more that there being anything _to _hear was odd. Noah Bennet did not have many visitors here. So who was he talking to now? More importantly, why was he talking to him or her about _Claire_?

Then Noah fell silent and another voice answered him - a voice Claire recognized as belonging to her grandmother, Angela Petrelli! Just hearing it made her heart thud painfully fast; if Angela Petrelli was here and asking about her, it probably didn't mean anything good for the young regenerator. Swallowing her panic, she tried to focus on what Angela was actually saying - if she could hear over her racing heartbeat.

"You've done exceptionally well getting her back, Noah. Knowing where Claire is and that she's in good hands will be vital in the not-too-distant future, I think."

"I don't know how long she'll want to stay here," Noah cautioned. "We haven't really talked about it and she does have school to consider - she might decide to go back to Peter any time."

"Then you'll just have to find a way of stopping her, won't you? I would say you should let her go, except that I don't have much faith in Peter's ability to keep her out of trouble; we might as well face it, lately he hasn't even been able to keep _himself _out of trouble. No, it's in Claire's best interests to keep her here. Do that, Noah."

He agreed, and then Claire heard Angela's footsteps approaching the couch where she was ostensibly sleeping; she made an effort to relax and look like she was really asleep. She lay frozen, her breathing a bit shallower than it should have been to keep up the pretense, her heart beating fast with anxiety and anger. So Angela was planning something to do with her, was she? Well, Claire wasn't sticking around to find out what. She would wait until Noah was out of the way, then she'd get her stuff together and split...again.

Luckily, Noah got out of the way soon - upon discovering that he was out of coffee, he left for the nearest convenience store to replenish his supply. Once he was out the door Claire sprang up off the couch and began shoving everything she'd brought with her haphazardly into her bag; it wasn't easy, but she managed to cram all her stuff inside in record time. Then she slung the heavy bag's strap over her shoulder and made her exit, pausing only to write her dad a note explaining that she'd decided to go home and suggesting that he tell Angela to quit sticking her nose into Claire's business.

###

Fifteen minutes later she was knocking on West's door, slightly out of breath from jogging to his house while carrying her luggage. He opened up, looking surprised to see her there - his surprise only deepened when he saw her bag. "Going somewhere?" he asked.

"Yes," Claire panted. "My grandmother showed up, and I have this feeling she's up to no good - again - I don't know what it has to do with me but she told Dad not to let me leave, and-"

"Slow down," West interrupted. "Come in." He stepped back, holding the door for her.

Claire entered and set her bag down, relieved to get it off her shoulder (which would be aching right now if she were still capable of feeling physical discomfort) for a while. Then she rehashed what she'd said, adding some more detail to clarify why she wanted to get away from Angela, and finished with, "So now I've gotta get back to Washington and I was kind of hoping you could help me."

"Help you - you mean fly you there?"

"Well...yeah." Claire couldn't understand the reluctance she was seeing in him; after all, he'd flown her lots of places in the last...how long had she been here? A week? Two? The point was, West was great at helping her escape - he had been ever since the first time they got together, when she'd wanted to escape from the school where she was forced to not only hide her special ability but also to pretend she was a stereotypical blonde airhead so she wouldn't draw _any _attention to herself. "Is there a problem?"

Instead of answering, West said, "So you wanna go to Washington. And when you get there, then what'll you do?"

"What I should've done a long time ago: go home," Claire whispered. If Peter and Bella weren't happy to see her back, well, that was their tough toenails. No way was she staying here to be roped into whatever Angela had planned for her!

"Go home," West repeated. "And what about me?"

Claire blinked, taken aback. What about West? She hadn't thought of him as her boyfriend this time around, but she _had _been going out with him, if for no other reason than that he was someone she could be herself with. Since so much of their interaction consisted of flying together, she wasn't even sure what common ground they had besides their posthuman DNA. "We could stay in touch, I guess... Email each other or something," she suggested lamely.

West shook his head. "That's not good enough! Claire, I don't want you to leave again. I want you to stay here with me."

"And I'd love to," she said slowly, carefully, "but if I do, who knows what Angela will do with me? She's part of the Company, West - the one that abducted you when you were just a kid, the one my family was running from when we first met!"

"So we'll get away from them! I can take you someplace safe-"

Claire cut him off. "I already have a safe place, even if going back there means I'll have to deal with my uncle and my best friend dating. I just wanted your help getting there is all."

"I'm not gonna help you disappear again, Claire - I won't let you!"

Where was this coming from? Just because they'd dated for a while didn't mean West _owned _her or anything! _It's just like last time, when I wanted to take my ability public after Dad was killed and he didn't want me to because he liked having his secrets, _Claire realized. _I couldn't count on him then and I can't now. This is the part where I break up with him - again. Damn déjà vu. _So she drew herself up and gave him her best sassily defiant look. "_Let _me? Try stopping me." Then she picked up her bag and stalked out the door.

Unfortunately West took her invitation to try stopping her to heart; he ran after her and grabbed her arm above the elbow, spinning her around to face him. "Claire, stop!"

That was the moment when Claire Bennet decided, _I am never going to date again, _ever_! _For her, it only ever ended messily, in attempted rape and tree limbs jabbed through her skull and a midnight breakout from a morgue, or her having to ditch the guy because he wasn't there for her to back her up when she really needed him to - then that same guy regretting it, wanting her back, and thinking he'd keep her with him even when she didn't _want _to be... She'd have to take drastic action to show him the error in that. "West, let go of me. _Now_."

He shook his head, looking determined. "I'm not letting you go again."

"If that's the way you want it, fine." She curled her free hand into a fist and slammed it into his nose with all the force she could muster. West yelped in shock, but he released her so he could clutch his nose with both hands. Claire snatched up her bag and ran before he could collect himself - the guy _could _fly, so her chances of outrunning him when he wasn't distracted were slim.

She ducked inside the first public building she saw - at least West's power would be useless if he followed her in here, although she hadn't seen any sign of him pursuing her after she'd punched him - either he was in too much pain to continue the chase or he'd just decided she was more trouble than she was worth. In all likelihood it was the former - Claire could pack a mean punch when she wanted to.

Whipping her cell phone out of its clip-on holder on the waistband of her jeans, she looked up the nearest airport in the Yellow Pages and dialed. After some hassle with the obligatory prerecording that answered the phone, she eventually succeeded in buying a ticket to Seattle. The only problem was that she had to reach the airport in forty minutes - which wouldn't be a problem if she could drive, but since she had no car and there were no taxis readily available... Claire twisted her hair up off her neck, hefted her bag, took a deep breath, and started running _again_.

Fortunately for her, she had always been athletic and was still in excellent shape despite not having done any cheerleading in a long while. Instead she'd found other forms of physical activity - mostly to do with self-defense, which was why she had been able to throw such a powerful punch at West.

Running a mile or so to the airport shouldn't have winded her - wouldn't have if not for the bulky duffel bag crammed full of clothes, shoes, and various accessories that she had to lug with her. Still, she made it with (barely) enough time to spare, tossed her bag onto the conveyor belt to be checked, and took her seat with the other passengers waiting to begin boarding. A couple of them glanced surreptitiously at the disheveled girl, but she ignored them and acted as if everything was perfectly normal - like she hadn'tjust punched out her former boyfriend when he tried to stop her running away from her dangerously manipulative grandmother - and they soon lost interest. She just hoped no one had mistaken her for a runaway and called the police.

_Sixteen hours later_

_Claire & Bella - Forks_

"Are you sure you're okay with this – me and Peter, I mean?" Bella hesitantly asked. "I know you said you were, but-"

"But you didn't believe me?" Claire took a moment to think seriously about it before saying, "No, I really am all right with it. I want you to be happy and I want him to be happy and if you're happy together, then who am I to gripe about it?" Especially since she knew better than most exactly how hard it could be to find someone you truly clicked with and actually make it work with them - even more so for their kind, who were often misunderstood and feared by anybody not like them. That was a big part of what had brought Claire and West together in the first place. "It's probably for the best anyway – you're both…"

"Super-freaks," Bella said wryly.

"Yeah, we all are. Do you ever wish you were normal, Bella?" Claire asked, a wistful note creeping into her voice.

"I've never felt normal – never really felt like I fit in with anyone – until I met you and Peter. If I didn't have you two I might want to be normal, but it's not so bad now that I have you."

"Peter and I feel the same way about you, you know."

Bella let herself fall onto her back and addressed her next words to the ceiling. "We'll see if you still feel that way now that having me around is more dangerous than it used to be. Claire, there's something I need to tell you."

"I'm all ears," Claire assured her.

"I wouldn't mind a little suspension of skepticism in there too," Bella muttered. She then spun one of the wildest tales Claire had ever heard; she'd seen some pretty wild things in her time as well, but _vampires and werewolves_? Her eyes grew wide as saucers as the story progressed, until Bella paused midsentence and said defensively, "I'm not making this up! Peter saw them too!"

Claire nodded slowly, held up a finger in the universal 'hang on a minute' gesture, and ran across the hall into Peter's room. "Peter!"

"Claire? What's up?"

She got straight to the point. "Is Bella insane?"

"Probably, a little. You're just now noticing that?"

"Is she insane enough to...really lose her grip on reality?" Claire persisted.

Peter frowned at her. "No, Bella isn't delusional."

"So all that stuff about vampires and werewolves is _true_?" Claire shrieked.

"As crazy as it sounds, yes."

"Okay," Claire said shakily. "Just checking. 'Night."

She returned to her own room, where Bella was waiting anxiously for her. "So now do you believe me?" she demanded.

Claire held her hands up in surrender. "I believe you. It's not that I thought you'd lie, it's just...just a lot to swallow. Forgive?"

Bella glared sternly at her just long enough to make Claire nervous, then suddenly changed her expression to a bright smile. "Okay. It took Peter some time to process it too, and he actually _saw _a vampire - and the pack - up close and personal."

"Well, now I'm jealous."

"You want to see them?" Bella asked incredulously.

"Maybe," Claire said with a shrug. "Just so I'm not the only person who never has."

"You're the lucky one. Non-'vegetarian' vampires are absolutely terrifying, and even the Cullens..." She shuddered, then changed the subject. "How about I introduce you to some of the pack tomorrow after school? I'm supposed to hang with them while Peter's at work anyway."

"You don't sound thrilled," Claire observed. "Are they as scary as vampires?"

"No, they're more of a pain in the neck - and just about any other body part. At least Jacob Black is; most of the others are okay. I'd rather not go to Embry's house since I know Jacob will be there, but I have to. It's not safe for me to stay in my own house alone, apparently," Bella complained.

Claire patted her arm sympathetically. "That sounds ridiculous. But look on the bright side, you won't have to deal with them by yourself. I'll go with you."

"Are you sure? You don't have to."

"Sure, I'm sure. What are best friends for?"

**Next (in Resilience): Bella comes home, and finds out what Charlie's been up to while she's been gone (and it's probably not what you'd think!)**


	12. Through Different Eyes

**So I have this new story idea - yes, another one - involving Jacob and this is me practicing at Jacob-centric writing, posted as a chapter for Jacob fans' enjoyment. **

Part XII: Through Different Eyes

_Jacob POV_

I was on my way to change the oil in the Rabbit - had my toolbox in one hand and the other hand on the doorknob - when Billy's voice froze me in my tracks. "Sam called a meeting. His place, five minutes."

Slowly, I looked over my shoulder. "Did he say what it's about?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

Dad shrugged. "Didn't need to."

_Of course_ _not. _As the alpha, Sam never needed to explain himself; he only had to give orders, and the rest of us jumped to obey them. That was the worst part of being a wolf, having your free will overridden, with having everyone's voices in my head running a close second. Sam hadn't _ordered _me to attend this meeting of his, so maybe just this once I'd disobey him while I had the chance...

As if he heard me thinking that, Dad said, "If Sam's calling a pack meeting, it must mean he's got a new lead on the vamps."

Dammit, he just had to say the one thing guaranteed to make me go to the stupid meeting, didn't he? I let my box thump onto the floor, headed outside, and ran for Sam's place.

I made it in record time - beat Jared, too. Paul left, snickering, to go drag him away from Kim. Sam was visibly angry at the delay. There was a shocker; he was normally the calmest of all of us. Something major must've gone down to make him so uptight, but he wasn't sharing until the whole pack was present and accounted for.

When Paul finally returned with Jared, Sam stood up and called the meeting to order. "The humans have found where our enemy is building her army," he announced once he had our full attention. One good thing about Sam, he always got right to the point - no fancy speeches, no BS, just straight info. "Peter says he can find them, and proposes that we take them down tonight."

"What are we waiting for?" Paul barked. "Let's go!"

"Wait. We need to discuss this first," Sam said firmly.

"What's to discuss?" My voice came out a low growl. "They're bloodsuckers, we kill bloodsuckers. It's as simple as that."

Sam turned those unbelievably cool eyes on me; I could almost feel the weight of his stare. "What's to discuss is that these vampires are not on our lands - it is not our way to attack when our territory is not threatened. I wouldn't even consider it, but Claire argued - rightly - that the one called Victoria is creating more of her kind for the express purpose of mounting an offensive against Bella, and that if we don't take preemptive measures, she will eventually bring her creations here."

"It makes sense from a strategic standpoint," Jared said slowly. "If we wait for them to come to us they would be prepared. This way we would have the advantage."

"Sounds good to me," I chipped in. I'd already been left out of the action once and didn't intend to miss out again if I could help it.

Sam regarded me speculatively. "You realize of course that taking part in this will require working closely with Peter Petrelli, don't you? I know how you feel about him, Jacob."

I clenched my teeth to stop myself snapping that of course Sam knew how I felt about Super-Freak - how could he not, when none of our thoughts were private? "I can put up with him for one night," I growled instead.

Sam turned away from me to address the room at large. "So far Paul, Jared, and Jacob are the only ones voicing any opinion. Let's put it to a vote: all in favor of attacking the vampires tonight, raise your hand."

Every hand in the room went up.

"Very well. We'll meet with the humans after sunset to talk strategy."

###

The rest of the day blurred by. I hung out with Embry and Quil in my garage and got my car's oil changed, but we were all so fired up by the prospect of a fight with the leeches that for once none of our minds were on mechanic work. As much as I hated to admit it, part of my excitement came from knowing that tonight I'd get the chance to see Super-Freak in action - find out if he was really all that. If he was, maybe then I could understand what Bella saw in him.

Hell, even now the attraction wasn't as big a mystery as I wished it was. After dating that parasite Cullen, a human - _any _human - was a big improvement. And she'd told me she was...like him. I still had trouble believing that; she looked so ordinary. Then again, so did he, and that blonde girl, not that she was so bad. Her accelerated healing was kinda like ours. You could even say she was similar to us, minus the wolf part. And we looked pretty normal too - it wasn't like anyone would just glance at us and go 'oh, they must be werewolves'.

"It's time," Quil said suddenly. Looking out the open garage door, I saw he was right. The sun was down. We all stripped to our birthday suits, tied our jeans to our legs so we'd have them when we got to the freaks' house, and trooped outside to transform.

###

Super-Guy and Blondie were waiting for us - duh, it _was _their house - but I hadn't expected Bella to be there. She was setting glasses and plates of sandwiches on the coffee table and greeted everybody, until she saw me. Then her smile disappeared and she very pointedly turned her back; guess she was still mad at me for breaking up her smooch-fest the other night. The pack took seats on every available surface in the living room, and Bella sat between her boyfriend and the couch's armrest, crushing herself up against him.

First we decided that Blondie should stay home - just because she couldn't be hurt by the leeches didn't mean she could fight them. Then we learned something chilling: one of the vamps had the power to drain the life out of anyone he touched! How the hell were we supposed to kill something we couldn't _touch_, for crying out loud?

Jared was obviously thinking along the same lines. "What's your plan for dealing with the energy vampire?"

I leaned forward, eager to hear Super-Guy's solution to this problem.

"Bella."

For a second I thought he was asking if she had any ideas; then I realized that _was _his idea. I couldn't believe it. Did he really think she stood a chance against this vamp? She was even more vulnerable than the blonde chick! If Sam or Jared didn't hurry up and point out how insane this plan was, I was going to explode.

Bella beat both of them to the punch. "Me?" she shrilled. "You're relying on _me_ to block Jax? Have you lost your mind?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"That's questionable. You're stronger than me – you should be the one taking care of him."

_Thank goodness she has enough sense to know this fight is no place for her. _After her thing with Cullen, I worried about her mental stability sometimes.

"I will," the freak assured her, "I just need you to keep him from using his power so I can kill him. Or so one of the pack can, if one of them happens to get to him first."

My eyes narrowed. _Nice of him to remember us. I bet he's only saying that to impress her. _Someone had to set him straight, and since nobody else was saying anything I guessed it was up to me. "Let me get this straight," I said in my best imitation of Jared's calm, methodical tone. "You're taking your girlfriend into a fight with bloodsuckers? Are you _trying_ to get her killed?"

"No, Bella can block from a distance – she doesn't need to be in the actual fight."

"But-" she started to protest.

He didn't let her finish. "It'd be better if you weren't anyway, so we won't have to take a chance on you getting distracted. Your focus slips and Jax can kill us all, remember?"

It was slick, I had to give him that - make sure she wouldn't be on the scene while still letting her do something important to keep her from putting up a fuss. I remembered how she'd shielded me from Super-Guy's invading my mind - like I didn't already have enough people doing that - so I figured she could probably handle this... But my confidence was dented when she began nervously chewing her lip, staring off into space.

"Are you sure she's up for this?" Embry asked worriedly.

"She'll be fine," Super-Guy assured him. "Bella's never let me down yet."

Sam cut in with, "If her concentration is so important, one of us should stay with her to make sure she doesn't get-" Sam paused on the point of saying 'attacked by a stray vamp "-distracted. You can't do it; your powers let you dismember vampires by yourself, whereas it takes at least two of us working together to do the same job – we need you in the field. Bella, is there anyone in particular you would like to guard you?"

"Jacob," she said quickly.

My mouth fell open. _Me? She picked _me_? _I couldn't help grinning. I knew I'd been a jerk to her the last time we talked, but maybe she wasn't holding as much of a grudge as I'd thought...

...At least I hoped not, until I went to the bathroom and found her already in there, with _him_. Peter freaking Petrelli. Did those two follow each other everywhere? How did it not bug Charlie, her trailing around like a lost puppy after this guy who was way too old for her? Then again, Charlie hadn't stopped her from seeing Cullen; at least Petrelli wasn't interested in drinking her blood. I edged closer when I heard her say my name - it wasn't really eavesdropping since they'd left the door wide open...

"Sure, he irritates me when he's around, but when he's not I don't even think about him. It's just that when you were talking about Jax, Jacob got this look on his face, and I got this feeling that he was gonna make something personal out of trying to kill Jax before you do. If his mind's on outdoing you then it's not on the fight – not completely – and one unfocused guy might be all it takes to get someone killed. And that might…might be you." A short pause as she choked up. "I can't let anything happen to you, even if it means I have to spend time alone with Jacob. I can't live without you."

_Oh, gag me. _Wouldn't you just know _he_ was all she cared about?

Bella threw herself into her boyfriend's arms, and he comforted her, but when she said she wished he'd stay a safe distance away from the battle, he just promised he'd be fine. I felt my respect for him rise a couple notches; he might let her cling to him like shrink-wrap, but at least he wasn't whipped enough to sit out for her.

_Nope, _I'm_ the sucker who'll be sitting out with her, _I remembered. _Crap. _

_Seattle_

I tried to make the most of my time with Bella by patching things up with her - who knew when I'd be able to get her alone next? - but she wasn't very cooperative.

"Don't talk to me. I need to concentrate, and you're supposed to be making sure nothing distracts me – not distracting me yourself," she snapped in response to my conversation opener.

"Right," I muttered. "We used to be friends, and now I'm just your glorified babysitter."

Ignoring me, she went back to her swami meditation position. The next agonizingly slow minutes were some of the dullest of my life, just sitting there watching Bella. She winced some and clutched her head, rubbing her temples and grinding her teeth - I wondered if Super-Guy hadn't overestimated her abilities - then she cried out and her eyes popped open.

"What happened? Are you okay?" If she could lay her mojo on the vamps from a distance, could they hurt her the same way?

"Yeah… I'm fine… Jax isn't though, I…I just felt him _die_," she said shakily.

Felt him die? That was a new one. No wonder Bella seemed a little off these days; her new crew had brought her over to the freaky side. Completely. "You sense death?"

"I sense powers, and his just…went out. It was there, and now it's not anywhere… Crap! I almost lost the other one – I need you to shut up now."

This was the best explanation of exactly what it was that Bella did I'd gotten; I turned it over in my mind for about a second...and then the wall of our hideout exploded in a burst of concrete chunks. Bella ducked, narrowly avoiding getting brained. Swirling gray dust went everywhere, including up my nose, but I still recognized a flash of red hair - that bloodsucker bitch!

She kicked me in the gut - it felt like a rock smashing into me - and then I was flying backward. We were in an abandoned construction site, so the walls were nothing more than framework and there was no glass in the windows; I went right through the interior wall and out a hole that would've been a window if the building had ever been finished.

I landed flat on my back. In the street. Which was four stories down. A string of curses ran across my mind, which was empty of everything else except the pain. Multicolored lights popped in front of my eyes, my ears rang, and my back felt like it was on fire - it'd be one big bruise for an hour or so. I sat up slowly, relieved that I could move; at least my back wasn't broken. That might've taken longer to heal. This way I could get right back to... Bella!

Bella had been left alone with the redheaded leech! I scrambled onto all fours, automatically shifting to my wolf form since it was best for protecting her.

As a wolf, my senses were even sharper than they were in human form; at the moment I wished they weren't. From the other side of the building, I heard a wet tearing sound and the crunch of breaking bone, and smelled the sharp coppery tang of blood. _Oh no, Bella! _

I charged toward the source of that bitter scent so fast my paws almost skidded out from under me, and then I rounded the corner and was brought up short by what I saw there: Bella, bleeding from her mouth and a hole punched in her chest, her neck bent at an impossible angle. I ran to her, pulled her off the ground; the shock of finding her like this had changed me back to human without my noticing.

Her blood was everywhere - it was warm, but her skin was already cooling in the night air. I cradled her lifeless body, trying to spread my own heat to her although I knew there was no way for me to warm her up again. _It was my job to keep her safe, and I failed her. I failed. _

**Next in Resilience: Elle ponders her situation and Bella tells Charlie the truth about her relationship with Peter. **


	13. The Obligatory Epic Battle Scene

**I'm not dead! It's been forever since I updated, but rest assured I'm still here, just busy. **

Part XIII: The Obligatory Epic Battle Scene

_Werewolf pack & Peter Petrelli - outside the vampires' hideout_

Exactly why Victoria's army of newborns chose to hole up in one of the area's many abandoned buildings was anyone's guess - it wasn't like they needed protection from the elements or a place to sleep - but Peter thought he knew why. Until very recently these creatures had been human, and seeking shelter was a human thing to do.

Beside Peter, the enormous black wolf that was Sam Uley was thinking along a different line. _Them all being inside that building will make containment easier. Spread out! Surround it! I want you all to stick together in pairs: Jared and Paul, Quil and Embry, Leah and Seth. _He hesitated ever so slightly on the last name; if Sam had had his way Seth wouldn't be in this fight and Jacob would have been paired with Leah - which would've made Jacob's night - but that plan came crashing down around Sam's furred ears when Bella requested Jacob as her personal guard for the night. The alpha's thick dark coat rippled as he shook himself and gave his last order. _Peter, you're with me. Be ready to teleport when I give the word. _

_Where to? _Peter asked via thought-speak; he'd been told that the vampires' super-hearing made it too risky to speak aloud.

_Right into the middle of the bloodsuckers, _Sam replied. _They'll converge on us, and then the others will come at them from the outside. We'll box them in. _

When the other pairs were ringed around vampire central, Peter transported himself and the pack leader into the center of a large room where about twenty vampires, so new their ruby eyes almost glowed, were clustered in a rough circle to watch as three more attempted to rip one another apart. To say they were surprised when a werewolf and a human appeared out of nowhere in the midst of that tangle of limbs and teeth was a gross understatement. Not giving them a single second to get their wits about them, the intruders took out the fighting trio in short order - Sam crushed the head of one in his powerful jaws, while Peter skipped the dismemberment and simply incinerated a second. Having destroyed his vampire's brain, Sam flung the body on top of the shrieking, burning one so that it caught fire as well. Then he and Peter each grabbed one of the third fighter's arms and yanked in opposite directions, tearing him apart.

By then the other newborns had come to themselves, processed the fact that they were under attack by a monster they'd never even known existed and a human who should be a midnight snack but appeared to be making mincemeat of _them_ instead - and the fact that he could shoot fire from his hands as well made fighting him an even less inviting prospect. The so-called 'army' did the only thing they could think of and ran for their lives - only to find their escape blocked by the rest of the pack.

It was an all-out melee after that, but the wolves had a clear advantage. They had practiced for this and had teamwork on their side whereas the vampires were disorganized and undisciplined, totally incapable of working together. The pack had one more thing working for them: the vast arsenal of powers at Peter's disposal. Too fast for any of the discombobulated newborns to catch, he dodged their poorly-aimed swipes at him and telekinetically decapitated several; with no brains attached, the vampires' bodies were like B-movie zombies, making them much easier for the wolves to take apart. Then they just piled the pieces on top of those Peter had already set afire.

Everything seemed under control until one vampire who was a few weeks older and therefore had more presence of mind than the rest feinted at Seth. Leah moved to protect her little brother, giving the vamp an opening to slip past them and jump Peter from behind. He instinctively teleported outside the building; his attacker was disoriented but held on, fingernails like raptor claws shredding his skin everywhere they could reach. Peter caught the white, hard-skinned wrist and sent a powerful electric blast through the vampire's body; the monster let go, yowling in pain.

Peter took advantage of the vamp's momentary incapacitation to let the worst of his scratches heal, then turned to face him or her or it...and froze. The vampire was a petite female with longish brown hair who bore a disconcerting resemblance to Bella. She huddled on the ground, her feral red eyes hidden under the dark curtain of her hair, and for an instant Peter felt some slight remorse for hurting her. Then she rebounded and leaped at him, snarling, her stony hands reaching for his throat; he grabbed her by the wrists again - and her skin crumbled away where he touched her. She screamed and then, as Peter watched in astonishment, her body degraded rapidly until nothing remained but a small pile of white dust that shimmered faintly in the moonlight.

"You killed Breanna!"

"I didn't do anything to her that she wouldn't have done to me," Peter retorted as he quickly sized up his latest challenger. This one was a male whose vampiric pallor was made more colorful by extensive tattoos left over from his human life as well as piercings in both ears, one eyebrow, and his lip. Even stranger, his eyes were deep purple instead of red. Peter knew who this must be and slammed every mental barrier he could muster into place; having Sylar's ability buried somewhere in his mind was bad enough without becoming a psychic vampire too. "It's Jax, right?"

The purple-eyed vamp nodded. "And you're the fucker that killed my mate! You're gonna die, asshole. I'm gonna suck the life outta you - all your power'll make me strong enough to ditch Victoria, and there won't be nothin' she can do about it." He lunged, only to fall flat on his face when Peter turned intangible. When he'd cleared the concrete dust from his eyes, he found that the human had disappeared. "Hey, get back here, asshole!"

"Stop calling me that." Peter's voice came from the seemingly empty air less than a foot away; Jax looked around wildly but saw nothing. An invisible hand dragged him upright, and then burning pain exploded in his dead heart - Peter had phased his fist inside the vampire's chest.

Quil and Embry, who had poked their heads outside to search for Peter, were treated to an incredible sight: a vampire being nuked from the inside out. Pieces of rock-hard skin flew in all directions like shrapnel, and then Peter materialized out of thin air with his fist still glowing. _That was __awesome__! _the wolves chorused in unison.

"That was improvised," Peter corrected. "I wasn't even sure it would work. How're things inside?"

_We've taken the bloodsuckers apart; now Sam wants you to torch the place before-_

The night's relative stillness was shattered by an approaching wail of sirens.

_-The cops get here, _Embry finished.

But the cops never arrived, not even with the vampire nest going up in flames. "This isn't right. Even if this part of town isn't the cops' highest priority, they should be here by now. You guys can find your own way home, can't you? I want to check this out."

A collective grumble went up from the pack when they heard that they would be taking the long way home.

Sam cut them off. _Go on, and whatever you do, _don't let yourselves be seen_. I'll stick with Peter. _

None of the pack had brought any clothing, so Sam was stuck in wolf form. This didn't make a great deal of difference as Peter kept them both invisible, it just meant Sam had to be more careful not to bump into anyone. They followed the flashing red and blue lights and found four police cars parked on the same block, their occupants stringing yellow crime scene tape in front of one of the many abandoned construction projects.

_This is where we left Jacob and Bella, isn't it? _Sam asked worriedly.

"Yeah. Blend into the shadows for a minute; I'm gonna go find out what happened here." Leaving Sam to skulk out of sight as best he could, Peter went over and pulled the nearest policeman away from the others. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Listen buddy, this isn't free entertainment. A girl was just murdered and-"

_What girl? Tell me everything. _

The cop blinked. "Well, we don't have a name yet - no ID on the vic. But we got here in time to catch the perp red-handed. Sickest thing I've ever seen in my life... We get a ton of calls about some huge commotion in the projects, which isn't that odd - all these abandoned buildings make this place a regular crime hotbed, but there were too many complaints coming in for us to put it off till morning - so we drive up and find this dead girl lying right there-" he pointed "-with her heart ripped out!"

"_What_?"

"I know, sounds like something from one of those bad horror flicks, doesn't it? But I'm not making this up - the girl's ribcage was totally busted, and her heart was crushed and torn all the way out of her chest. And there was this big naked guy, covered in her blood, holding the body. We don't know what to make of it - necrophilia, cannibalism? Who knows? The ME still has to sign off on this, but based on the way the girl's chest was crushed, we think this guy's behind the whole string of murders; at least I hope he is. I'd hate to think he's only a copycat, and the real killer's still out there-"

"Where are they now?" Peter interrupted.

"Who?"

"The girl! Has she been taken to the morgue already?"

"Yeah, and the perp's already been taken downtown..." The cop's voice trailed off as Peter erased his memory of their conversation and vanished. "Huh? How'd I get way over here?"

###

After rejoining Sam and making him invisible again Peter asked, "How much of that did you hear?"

_Everything. _The alpha wolf shuffled his paws, clearly agitated.

"Bella's dead!"

_You don't know it was her body the police found, _Sam reasoned. His attempt at calming the empath fell flat.

"Give me a break," Peter snapped. "Who else could it have been, huh? You know Victoria wanted to kill Bella, you know she wasn't one of the vampires we killed, and who else's body would Jacob have stayed with?"

_No one's, of course - and now he's been arrested for staying with her. Can you do anything about that?_

"Get Jacob out of jail? I _could_, but what makes you think I want to? It was supposed to be his job to keep _this _from happening!" Peter gestured furiously at the street, which was still stained with Bella's blood.

Sam regarded him with a steady calmness that made Peter want to light a fire under his tail. _I understand your anger, I really do. Even so, Jacob did not kill Bella and doesn't deserve to be blamed for a crime he didn't commit. _

"He might as well have," Peter muttered. "He didn't protect her. I should've stayed with her myself instead of letting you talk me into leaving her with him. Okay, I'll bail him out - but I'm taking care of her first."

Puzzlement showed clearly on Sam's wolfish face. _Bella's already dead. There's nothing you can do for her now. _

"We'll see about that."

**The next chapter will pick up immediately after this and I think I'll write it right away - I'm on a roll here! You can expect it sometime next week. **


	14. All in a Night's Work

**This chapter has a warning for content (even though there's actually a lot less blood than there could've been, maybe it still merits a warning) and numerous time-skips. **

Part XIV: All in a Night's Work

_12:12 AM_

Claire did a very Bella-like thing and bit off her thumbnail as the clock struck midnight. Of course it grew back, but now she'd need to retouch the pink polish. _Shouldn't they be back by now? It's been...ah...well, it seems like a long time. Why'd I let myself get left here?_

The door banged open. "Claire!"

"Peter! Thank goodness you're back, I was getting... What's wrong?" Because it was written all over his face that something was _very _wrong.

"Bella - Victoria got to her. I need you to come with me." Peter brought Claire to the door leading into Seattle General's morgue. "Brace yourself," he advised her.

"For what?"

"Something ugly."

"You know what? Maybe I'll just stay out here - be the lookout just in case anyone comes along." Claire Bennet was no wimp, but neither was she in any hurry to see her best friend's 'ugly' remains. She would happily take lookout duty over that.

_12:43 AM_

Bella clutched Peter's jacket tightly around herself and shivered. "Can you take me away from here, Peter? This place gives me the creeps."

"Your place or ours?" She was supposed to spend tonight with him and Claire, but after what happened to her it wouldn't surprise him if she wanted to sleep in her own bed instead.

"Yours, please. I don't want Charlie to see me like this."

###

She collapsed immediately on Claire's bed, still shaky - and unaware of the dark figure that stole a peek at her through the open door and then melted into the hallway's shadows. Peter wasn't; the interloper's thoughts were loud and clear inside his head. "Claire, why don't you get Bella into the shower?"

Claire glanced quickly away from Bella to Peter, wondering at the tension in his tone, then shrugged. "He's right, you do need to clean up. C'mon, Bella." She took the other girl's arm and hoisted her off the bed.

Bella remained fairly pliable until Claire tried to steer her out of the room; then she grabbed Peter's sleeve and refused to budge another inch. She said nothing, just looked up at him with huge pleading eyes.

"Bella, don't do that - it's just a shower, Peter will be here when you get out."

"Will you?"

"Yes - I'm not going anywhere, right?"

"Not without me." Bella gave him a fleeting smile and allowed Claire to steer her away with no further difficulty.

With the girls gone, Peter stepped into the hallway and addressed the man he knew was there. "What is it, Sam? You're my friend, but inviting yourself in after the night we've had is pushing it."

Sam appeared from the shadows, looking contrite. "I'm sorry. I only wanted to see... And now I have."

"See what?" Peter asked irritably.

"Bella - you've got her back."

"Told you I would."

"It just seems incredible - are you positive she was really dead?"

The words called forth a series of images that Peter knew he would be remembering much longer than he wanted to (_Where's the Haitian when you need him?_) of Bella's body and everything he'd had to do to bring her back to life. "She was dead all right."

_She was dead and now she isn't - resurrected - or reanimated - looked like a zombie just sitting there - not natural-_

"'Not natural'? I'll tell you what isn't natural: my girlfriend getting killed by a vampire!"

Sam had the grace to look embarrassed. After a tense pause he asked, "Is she okay? Because if she isn't-"

Peter sighed. "You've seen _Pet Sematary _too many times, Sam. She's just a little shaken up - she'll get over it."

"I hope you're right. In any case, you have Bella; now will you see what you can do about Jacob's situation? Billy wants his son back at home just as much as you wanted the girl."

"Well, when you put it that way... Want me to do this alone, or d'you wanna watch the show?"

Sam smiled. "Go alone. I trust you."

_Do you? _Since they'd begun coordinating their efforts to rid Forks of vampires, Sam sometimes seemed to forget that Peter was not one of his pack and did not in any way need an alpha giving him orders. Whether that was due to lack of trust or just leader-of-the-pack instincts wasn't clear, but it was annoying either way. Other than that, Sam and Peter were the best friends a werewolf and an incredibly powerful evolved human could be. Maybe Sam had finally gotten the message that his supervision was unwanted.

_12:39 AM_

_Jacob Black - Police Plaza, Seattle_

Dressed in uncomfortably tight prison-issue sweats, Jacob stared impassively across the steel table to which he was handcuffed at the corpulent red-faced cop who lounged in his folding chair, sipping a cup of espresso. Finally the officer put down his cup, leaning toward his interrogation subject with his hands folded on the tabletop. "I've seen some pretty sick stuff in my day, but you take the cake. That was some serious damage you did to that poor girl-"

_Serious damage. _Yes, he had done serious damage. He hadn't taken his job protecting Bella seriously because he resented being left out of the fight, and now she was dead. Serious damage indeed.

"-More than anybody should be able to do with their bare hands. Wanna tell me how you did that?"

"Didn't do that," Jacob dully replied. "Just didn't stop it."

The officer's face reddened even more; he banged his meaty fist on the table. "Don't give me that crap, punk! We found you - nobody else - at the scene of the crime, _holding her dead body while it was still bleeding out_! There's no way someone else could've left her like that and you could've found her in that short a time!"

Jacob knew differently - of _course_ he and Victoria could move fast enough to do what the fat cop said was impossible - but saw no point in arguing. It wasn't like this guy would ever believe him.

The cop glared at him for a long moment, nostrils flared as he huffed like a winded horse. Then, realizing that Jacob wasn't going to say anything, he resumed speaking in a calmer tone. "So what were you gonna do with her heart, huh? Eat it, flush it down the toilet, or-?" He was rudely interrupted by the interrogation room door flying open. "What the-? Hey buddy, you can't be in here-"

Peter Petrelli was totally unimpressed by the policeman's assertion that he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. He simply pushed right into the cop's personal space, laid his hand on the blustering man's forehead, and the cop collapsed backward into his chair, unconscious.

"What're _you_ doing here?" Jacob demanded. Just when he'd thought his night couldn't get any worse...

"Posting your bail."

"You didn't kill the cop, did you?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "No, I did not kill the cop - I just put him to sleep awhile. When he wakes up he won't remember anything that happened tonight."

Leaving the station, they passed through a main room which Jacob noted was filled with unconscious police officers slumped at their desks or on the floor. "You erased all their memories?" he asked in a slightly awestruck whisper.

"Uh-huh. I didn't think to check whether they'd already booked your arrest though." Peter proceeded to the nearest computer, pressing his fingertips to the screen, and Jacob's picture and a brief description of him appeared. Another second and it was gone, replaced by a message reading FILE DELETED.

"How'd you do that?"

Peter grinned crookedly. "All in a night's work, wolfman. Ready to go home?"

Jacob stepped back. "Not using _your_ form of transportation. I'll run."

"Suit yourself." Jacob's attitude was nothing new - lots of people found teleportation unpleasantly disconcerting. "See you in...however long it takes you to get back." Peter vanished, leaving no trace of his presence except a soft whooshing sound as air rushed into the space he'd filled a nanosecond earlier.

What he didn't know was that dislike of being teleported wasn't the sole reason Jacob had opted to make his own way back to La Push. He also wanted to be alone, to run. The night's events had given him a lot to think about.

###

Back at home, Peter put off trying to sleep. He knew he was going to see Bella's dead, staring eyes the instant he closed his; he couldn't even shake the macabre images completely out of mind while fully awake. _But she's safe now - everything's fine. _It was just that he had never known just how important she truly was to him until he came close to losing her. Hell, he _would_ have lost her if not for a certain regenerating blonde's devotion to her best friend...

_Flashback - 12:25 AM_

_Outside the morgue_

"What do you mean it didn't work? Is there something wrong with me?"

"No, your blood worked like it was supposed to..." Peter replayed the failed attempt in his mind, searching for some reason why it hadn't worked. He had put Bella's heart back in place inside her smashed ribcage and injected it with Claire's blood, and the crushed muscle _had_ regenerated... then stopped beating again as soon as the blood was pumped out. That was it! "I think," Peter said slowly, "that too much of Bella's blood drained out... There wasn't enough left in her to carry your blood through her body."

"So then we just need to give her more blood, right?"

"In theory, but the only place to get more is from you."

"And the problem is...?"

"The problem is that this is a _lot _of blood we're talking about. I don't know if I can ask you to do this."

"You don't have to ask. I'm volunteering."

"Claire..."

"Don't 'Claire' me, Peter!" The diminutive blonde stubbornly crossed her arms. "Bella is my friend too - you're not the only one that loses something if she stays dead. Just...bring her back, _please_."

_End Flashback_

A soft tap came from behind him, interrupting the memory. Peter turned, saw Bella hovering in the doorway as though unsure whether she was allowed to enter, and felt an unanticipated rush of relief. Sure, he'd known she was perfectly all right - physically if not emotionally - but it was still good to actually _see _her, alive and well. But why was she up at this hour? "Bella? What are you doing here?"

"I can't sleep."

"Me either."

Bella glanced pointedly at Peter's clothes and obviously not-yet-used bed. "Doesn't look like you've tried."

"I already know I won't be able to," he told her. "I can't stop thinking about you." Mainly because he kept seeing her dead in the morgue, but also because he was seeing her now. Her pink and yellow flannel pajamas weren't remotely sexy, but still, he had never wanted her more than he did at the moment.

She seemed to feel the same way, because she responded enthusiastically when he kissed her, parting her lips so his tongue could slip into her mouth and brushing it with her own. When their kiss finally ended they were both breathing harder than normal; she stared up at him, eyes wide, clearly nervous about the unexpected passionate spark between them. But there was definitely excitement there as well - she wanted him just as much as he wanted her, even if she was a little afraid to.

That was all Peter needed to know. "Stay with me."

She breathlessly replied in the affirmative, and moments later they were in bed together...barely touching. "Are you really sure about this?" He had to ask, because he'd seen a tiny hint of uncertainty in her eyes. Much as he wanted to be with her now, he wanted her not to hate him in the morning even more.

"I am." Her voice shook too much for him to take the assurance at face value.

"You're scared."

"Not scared, exactly – more like nervous. I…never… That is to say, I-I haven't done…this…before," she stammered, her face flushing a deeper red with every word.

It wasn't what Peter had expected to hear. The one and only time he'd been allowed to explore her memories - within her own designated limits, of course - she was very careful not to show him anything explicit concerning her relationship with Edward Cullen. Naturally, he assumed that was because she didn't want him to know all the gory details. If no gory details existed, then why was she embarrassed? He tried to search her eyes for any sign of a lie, but she kept them out of his sight by turning her head away, then by closing her eyes when he pulled her head back toward him. "Bella, look at me. You and Edward never..."

"No! He said we couldn't – that he was too strong and he could hurt me. So we just…didn't. Does this…change your mind about…me? Knowing that I'm a- that I don't have any um, experience, I mean."

"What? Oh…no," Peter answered quickly and somewhat vaguely, distracted with processing what she'd said. It didn't change his mind about her - at least not in the way she feared. It just added a whole new meaning to her being here with him. "It's just that I've never been anyone's first time before." Why that made a difference was hard to pinpoint - it certainly didn't impact the mechanics of the thing. But it did impact its significance, knowing that she trusted him enough to be with him like this when she had no idea what it would be like.

Bella was gazing up at the ceiling again, not quite smiling but obviously pleased.

"Does that make you happy?"

"Yeah, it kind of does." She leaned up on one elbow, bringing her lips to Peter's again and directing him on top when she lay back, wrapping her legs around him. "Do it. And _please _don't worry about hurting me. After Victoria, there's no way _you _could hurt me."

**That was the first time I've tried writing that type of scene from the male perspective, and I'm not at all sure of the quality. Please tell me your opinion on it, even if you thought it sucked. At least I stuck by my chapter 1 promise not to get into smut territory.**


	15. Omitted Scenes from Resurgence

**The first part of this chapter is Claire POV on ch25 of Resurgence, then the scene after the first asterisk/page break thing is set immediately after the end of ch26. All the rest is missing scenes that should go between chapters 26 and 27 but that I never got around to writing while I was still posting in Resurgence, so they got relegated to the companion story. **

Part XV: Omitted Scenes from Resurgence

Half-awake, Claire rolled over...and her hand touched only empty space where Bella should have been. Her eyes peeled open, checking; yes, once again Bella was up first. _She must be able to get by on even less sleep than me, because I could've sworn she was still awake when I went to sleep. _Not that Bella had shifted around too much - she was actually more mobile asleep than awake - Claire could just _tell_. Prior to making friends with Bella, she'd never appreciated how impossible it was not to notice when someone in the same room, let alone the same bed, as you lay awake; she'd never had that problem when her sleepovers were with Jackie.

Also, she thought maybe she remembered Bella getting up, though she couldn't be sure - it was late and by then she'd been almost completely dead to the world. _Still, Bella'd had a tough night - maybe I should've woken up to make sure she was okay. _With that in mind, Claire jumped out of bed and dressed quickly, deciding to postpone brushing her teeth until after she found Bella - a task which became even more urgent when a glance out her bedroom window showed her Charlie Swan's police cruiser rolling down the street. _Oh, crap! _

Claire hauled butt down the staircase, only pausing as raised voices from below reached her ears. It sounded like Peter and Bella were vehemently disagreeing over something - _not _a situation Claire wanted to walk into. Finally their voices returned to normal volume, so she proceeded downstairs with caution...

...And walked right into Bella, who looked literally 'banged up'. Claire realized instantly that Bella had indeed gotten up in the middle of the night, but it didn't matter that Claire had stayed asleep. In fact, it was better that she had. _Wow. They finally did it. _The thought felt strangely distant, as if it had only just stirred in a dark corner of an imaginary room in Claire's mind before she pushed it away. What happened between Bella and Peter was none of her business, and she didn't want it to be. She wouldn't say anything about it - but Charlie would if Bella didn't get herself cleaned up before he saw her. "I just happened to look out the window and saw Charlie's cruiser turn onto this street. Since he's probably coming to give you a ride home, you'd better get dressed before he gets here."

"Right, thanks for the heads-up." Bella started upstairs, then paused. "Claire, can I- Can I talk to you for a minute?"

That was exactly what Claire had hoped to avoid. She knew talking about the guys in their lives was a common thing for girlfriends to do together and would ordinarily love it, but it was different when the guy in question was her _uncle_.

Much to her relief, Bella didn't want to discuss any embarrassing details, just to make sure Claire wasn't upset with her. It was with a minimum of awkwardness that she got Bella dressed presentably and out of the house, though Bella clearly wasn't happy about leaving with Charlie. Actually, she hadn't seemed happy about anything all morning, not even her 'quality time' with Peter last night.

"I'm worried about her," he said once the front door had closed on her.

"She died last night. You know when I pulled that glass shard out of your head and I said that I'd died before and it was no big deal? I lied. It _is _a big deal - the biggest - and if Bella saw Victoria coming at her, that's even worse."

There was a long pause in which neither spoke. When Peter broke it, his voice was softer than usual and hesitant. "Did you...see it coming?"

Claire answered immediately, "No, Brody didn't mean to kill me. He just-" She stopped, realizing no one except her dad knew Brody _had _been trying to rape her. "I just fell," she said instead. "Didn't even see the branch before I landed on it. When I woke up in the morgue and realized what'd happened I was pretty shook up, but I got over it. So will Bella - probably faster than I did because she doesn't have to deal with it by herself. Just make sure she doesn't feel like she has to; don't leave her alone."

###

"Don't leave me alone," Bella whispered when Peter pulled back from their kiss.

"I'm not leaving you," he assured her for what felt like the umpteenth time.

"I didn't mean for good, I meant tonight. Stay with me tonight, please?"

Peter asked, "All night? _Here_?" and Bella nodded 'yes' to both. "You know I can't do that."

"Sure you can." For the first time all day, a hint of the normal, stubborn Bella came through in her eyes and tone of voice. "Edward did it all the time."

"_What_? Are you saying he spent the night in your room with your _dad _here?"

Bella nodded again, slower this time because she sensed Peter's incredulity and recognized it as a precursor to disapproval. He just hadn't gotten there yet.

"I thought you said vampires couldn't sleep."

"They can't. Edward would just watch _me _sleep."

That was one piece of information about her he wouldn't have minded not having. "That's really creepy. Don't you _know_ that?"

It was obvious that she didn't; she gave the matter some quick, hard thought, trying to figure out what was creepy about it before saying, "We didn't do anything - you know that."

"Just watching someone sleep is creepy," Peter informed her. "Especially with their father right next door. Why'd you let him do it?"

Bella's face went slightly pink. "It was nice having him there. He had nothing else to do at night, and I always felt very safe with him, so I wanted him around all the time. I would want you around all the time too if you could be," she added quickly.

"That's not exactly healthy."

"Hmm, maybe not. I should work on that." Bella was not exactly well-versed on healthy human behavior, though she was learning a bit about it from Claire. From Peter, she was learning other things, like how to be selfless and heroic and put somebody else - somebody she didn't even know - first. In a way she'd done that her whole life, but only for the people she cared about. She never thought about saving the world - never thought anyone _could _until she met someone who _had_. Someone who wasn't so different from her.

That discovery had opened up a whole new world of possibilities, but now she was right back where she started. Fragile little human, James had called her, and he was right. So what if she could block the powers of someone like Sylar and shield people she wanted to protect? She could still be wiped out in an instant with a single swipe of a vampire's hand. She was still just a girl who depended on her boyfriend way too much. Weak. Pathetic. "Please," she said softly, her voice sounding small and almost childish. "Please don't leave me alone. Not tonight."

She had Peter beat; he knew it even if she didn't. He could hold his own in an argument with her, but when she didn't fight and just begged, then it was impossible not to give in without being mean. She couldn't handle that at the moment - her psyche had taken one too many recent blows already. "Fine, but only for tonight. We are _not _going to make a habit of this."

"Of course."

"And I can't stay up with you all night."

"Of course not... Was it noisy at night in Manhattan?"

"There was always traffic. Why?"

"Just making sure you don't need peace and quiet. I talk in my sleep like you wouldn't believe."

###

The rest of the week passed uneventfully. True to Claire's prediction, Bella recovered from her post-postmortem trauma. By the time spring break ended, it was almost as though the night of March 23rd had never happened. Almost - but not quite.

By the time Claire arrived in Forks High's parking lot, Bella was already there, sitting on her truck's tailgate so that the bulbous cab hid her from the few kids waiting outside for the first bell, reading. She glanced up and smiled as Claire parked beside her.

"Hey! What're you doing hiding out here?"

"Waiting to meet you, like I always do."

Claire decided to test her. "Couldn't you wait for me in front of building C?"

Bella's eyes fell to her book. "I could... I just don't want anyone asking me what I did for spring break. I don't know what I should say."

"If anyone asks, I'll take care of it," Claire promised. "Just let me do the talking, all right?"

"Yes! You're the greatest."

Claire fabricated details of how she and Bella had spent their vacation which excluded any mention of vampire armies, and the morning passed without incident. At lunch, Bella whispered, "Is there something going on that I've missed? Everyone seems oddly upbeat today."

"Well, yeah. It's almost April - only a couple more months of school. And there're those." Claire pointed out several rose-wreathed ads taped on the wall in strategic spots. "Student council must've put them up over break."

"Prom?" Bella's nose wrinkled as she read what the fliers were advertising; she looked like she had just discovered an unknown yucky substance stuck to her shoe.

"It's an annual dance for the upper classes in most American high schools," Claire explained, struggling to keep a straight face.

Bella poked Claire with her spork. "I know what a prom is, thank you. Edward dragged me to it last year - he even made me _dance_." She shuddered.

"By shooting at your feet? I can't imagine any other way of making you dance."

"No, he just had me put my feet on top of his, like you do with little kids dancing at weddings. It wasn't terrible, but I don't care to repeat the experience. Peter will understand if I don't want him to take me, won't he?"

"Understand?" Claire laughed. "I think he's pretty much- Uh-oh, Mike alert."

Bella mimed zipping her lips just as Mike slid into the unclaimed seat beside her. "Hey, what up, guys?"

"Claire and I aren't guys. We were just, um..."

"Discussing prom," Claire supplied as more people joined them. Bella aimed a kick at Claire's shin, hitting Eric instead. Raising his voice to be heard over Eric's pained howl, Mike asked Bella to be his prom date. She threw Claire a frantic I'm-stuck-for-an-excuse-please-rescue-me look, so Claire answered for her. "Her stepdad's baseball team is playing that weekend-" which was true "-and she's flying up to Jacksonville to watch." Which was a lie; Phil's broken leg still hadn't healed, and even if it had Bella wouldn't be going to his game.

"Couldn't you have gone to Jacksonville over spring break?" Mike asked Bella.

Her face drained of color. "Things were different then," she mumbled.

"Huh?"

"The Suns weren't playing then," she stated more clearly. "I have to go." Abandoning her lunch, she fled to the girls' restroom.

Everyone watched her go, then turned to Claire for an explanation of the latest Bella weirdness.

"She's just concerned about Phil - he had an accident training for the spring season. I better go see if I can get her to come back and eat." In the restroom, Claire found Bella with her forehead pressed to the mirror, gripping both sides of a sink so tightly her knuckles were white. "Bella, are you okay? I'm sorry I brought up the prom; it was just a joke, since Mike's always hitting on you." No reply. "Bella?"

Without looking up, Bella said very quietly, "Renée _asked_ me to visit her during spring break. I wanted to go, but I couldn't because of Victoria. She made it too dangerous for my mother to be anywhere near me."

"I'm sorry - I didn't know."

"You couldn't have. Peter wanted to kill her, you know, after... I made him promise he wouldn't try. I don't want him risking his life for me again, but I do wish Victoria was dead. I _hate _her. I wanted Laurent dead too, after he attacked Peter - that's what made me tell Peter how to kill vampires." Bella shivered. "I've never hated anyone so much before. It's almost-"

"Scary, to feel like you actually want to kill somebody, even if they deserve it." Claire laid a hand on Bella's forearm, squeezing gently. "That's how I feel about Sylar."

The restroom door swung open and Angela Weber poked her head inside. "There's only about five minutes of lunch left; you'd better come eat something."

###

Over the course of the next week two important things happened: teachers began talking more and more about finals and steadily increasing the students' workload ("I swear they're having a contest to see who can give the most homework before we graduate," Mike moaned after a particularly grueling physics review) and Austin Marks asked Claire to the prom. She accepted - and was then faced with the task of asking Peter for money to buy a dress.

"Just ask him!" Bella urged. She rolled onto her back, let her head dangle off the edge of her bed, and peered at Claire upside down. "The worst he can do is say no, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Claire said noncommittally, twirling a strand of hair around her index finger. "I don't know why I said yes; I'm not even really interested in Austin!"

"Well, they can't all fly; you'll have to go out with a regular guy sooner or later, so it might as well be him," Bella reasoned. "Besides, _I'm _supposed to be the freak who hates prom, remember? You're the normal one. Peter's downstairs with Charlie; if you don't ask him, I will." Getting up, she strode purposefully from the room.

Claire ran after her, catching her at the top of the stairs. "Okay, okay, I'll ask him! Go finish your homework."

Bella smirked. "Not a chance. I didn't wanna do this but..." She tickled Claire's ribs with her free hand, causing the blonde to release her as she clamped her arms to her sides. Taking advantage of Claire's momentary breathlessness, Bella sprinted downstairs, one hand on the banister to ensure that she didn't fall.

_Prom night_

_Bella POV_

"Wow, you look amazing."

"Thanks. Amazing enough to make you wish you weren't staying in tonight?" Claire turned away for one last look in the mirror as she asked, already knowing what my answer would be - I had told her the same thing countless times over the last couple weeks whenever she gave me a hard time about skipping the prom.

I said it again anyway. "No, I do not wish I was going to the prom. I hate dressing up and wearing makeup, and when you add in the fact that I'd have to go with someone other than Peter, well, let's just say Victoria's army of newborn vampires would not be able to drag me there. Besides, who says Peter and I are staying in tonight?"

"Um, you're supposed to be in Florida," Claire reminded me. "You have to lay low this weekend."

"Thanks for that," I said dryly. "But you're forgetting that tonight, everyone I'd have to worry about bumping into is at the prom."

"Sneaky Bella." Coming from Claire, 'sneak' was a compliment.

Downstairs, the doorbell rang and Peter let Austin in.

"There's your date. Try to have fun."

Claire rolled her eyes. "I _will _have fun, Bella; I'm not you."

I stayed upstairs until I heard her leave with Austin, then went down to join Peter. "You wanna go out tonight? We could catch a movie in Port Angeles or..." My voice trailed off as I noticed that Peter didn't seem crazy about that idea. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, it's just that we can go anywhere, and you pick _Port Angeles_?"

"Well..." I thought for a second and a flash of inspiration struck me. "I seem to remember you saying you'd take me to New York sometime."

###

The next two hours passed in what had to be the most unconventional date I'd ever been on. Peter showed me all the touristy hotspots of New York City as well as where he used to live; it was a nondescript apartment building, but for me it was the most interesting place of all, because it was where the most important person in my life was from. Still, I couldn't deny that the rest of the city was fascinating; there was so much to see, so many sounds hitting my ears from all sides, and more people on a single block than in all of Forks - or so it seemed. When we reached Times Square I spun in circles, trying to take in everything at once, until I lost my balance and Peter caught me as I stumbled. "Are you okay?"

I waved away his concern. "This place is giving me sensory overload is all. Can we go somewhere quieter, please?" A second later I found myself in the top of the Statue of Liberty, all of New York spread out before me in a glowing panorama. "Wow, this view is incredible... Didn't they make it illegal for people to come up here after 9/11?"

"No one will know we were ever here as long as you don't knock the statue down. Just don't touch it too hard, okay?"

I started snickering, falling silent when I realized that with my luck, the idea of me bringing down the statue wasn't so laughable. Suddenly afraid of touching anything, I removed my hand from the guardrail.

"Want to go somewhere else?"

"Here is good."

We stayed up there for what seemed like a long time, admiring the breathtaking view. Finally I tore my eyes away from the horizon and said, "It must be getting late; you should probably take me home. Tonight's been so perfect, I just wish it would never end. You know, final exams aren't too far away, and the teachers have really been cracking down on us. With all the homework we're getting, I might not be able to see you for a while." I felt some disappointment when Peter didn't seem nearly as dismayed as I had been upon reaching this conclusion.

"I guess now's a good time to give you your present then."

My ears pricked. "A present? You didn't have to get me anything."

"Consider it a replacement birthday gift, since it's my fault you threw away your stereo from the Cullens."

"It wasn't your fault - I just didn't want anything from them anymore." Peter only looked at me. "Which admittedly may have had something to do with you," I muttered. "But that doesn't mean I wanted you to buy me another fancy stereo."

Peter fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out a box that was definitely too small for a stereo. "Just open it already."

I frowned at the uncharacteristically terse order even as I flipped up the box's hinged lid - and gasped in delighted surprise. Normally I didn't care to accessorize much, but this necklace was so gorgeous I could tell I would have to make an exception for it.

"Do you like it?" Peter spoke rather abruptly again; this time I realized that he was nervous. He must not have given anyone jewelry before.

"I love it," I assured him. "I'll never take it off."

"You don't have to do that-"

"Please," I interrupted. "I _want _to. It's beautiful, and the fact that you gave it to me makes it something really special. It'll be something I can keep with me during hell week - week_s_, maybe, if my teachers carry on with this sadistic 'work the seniors to death' trip they're on. But I have to say, I'd rather keep _you_ with me."

**And now, a preview of Resilience ch12 (in BPOV):**

_"Gimme your wallets! Now or I'll shoot!"_

My mind could barely process what was happening. One second everything was fine and normal; the next, I was staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

"Okay, okay, just cool it," Claire said, much more calmly than I could have.

The thief seemed as panicky as me; his arm swung wildly, pointing the gun first at Claire, then Elle, then back at me. Claire reached into her purse and pulled out her taser instead of a wallet. "You-!" Before she could fire at him, the man's hand twitched convulsively; his gun went off less than a foot from my face.

As if in slow motion, I saw the bullet fly toward me - then it hit my shield and ricocheted. The man fell backward, his limbs splayed out like a broken and discarded doll's, and lay motionless. I dropped to the ground beside him and pressed my palm to his chest, but I couldn't stop the dark red stain spreading through his shirt. _Oh my God, what have I done?_


	16. My Little Girl

**Here's Charlie's POV on the end of Resurgence ch27 and ch28. Dedicated to Everlasting Muse, who asked me to write Peter and Charlie's conversation about Bella. **

Part XVI: My Little Girl

It was the proudest day of Charlie Swan's life: his daughter's high school graduation. Although he wished she wore a less skimpy dress under her yellow gown, he was still ecstatic - especially since there was a time a few months back when he wasn't sure Bella would make it here at all. Her grades had been beyond reproach during those months when she used studying as a distraction, but her behavior was such that Charlie had expected her to simply not get out of bed one morning. Yet here she was, perfectly happy as she joined her classmates. Charlie thought that was mostly thanks to Claire Bennet; making friends with that girl really was the best thing that could've happened to Bella. Although she still kept to herself a lot, she had become somewhat less antisocial, as if some of the ex-cheerleader's people skills were slowly rubbing off on her.

Claire even got Bella to agree to dinner at the Lodge - that was when the evening started going downhill. Everything was fine while Charlie chatted with the Crowleys and ate his marinated filet mignon, but when he polished it off at last and looked up from his plate, Bella was gone. "Bells?" He scanned the restaurant, failing to spot her in the post-graduation crowd. Either she was in the ladies' room, or she was waiting outside. He hoped for the first one - loitering around parking lots after dark was what got Bella mugged that night on the last weekend in January when she met Claire and Peter - but decided to check the cruiser anyway.

Charlie exited the Lodge, speed-walked through a maze of vehicles to his police car, and discovered Bella in the middle of a very heated makeout session with Peter Petrelli. This led to Charlie gut-punching Peter and dragging Bella's sorry butt home, where he fully intended to ground her until she left for college. When she confessed to secretly dating Peter for approximately three months _and _having had sex with him, even though she swore they had been safe, Charlie revised the grounding idea. Forget the end of August; keeping Bella under house arrest until she hit forty seemed more appealing. Suddenly, Charlie wasn't having such a great night anymore.

He lay awake well into the early hours of the morning, the scene from the Lodge's parking lot playing over and over like a broken record in his head: Bella's already short dress hiked up far enough to display her underwear to all and sundry where she'd wrapped her legs around her...boyfriend (Charlie had a hard time applying that word to Peter in relation to _his _little girl)... Their hands tangled in each other's hair... Her wide-eyed panic as she threw herself between Charlie and Peter, like he needed her protection from the wrath of the Forks police chief... Still, what haunted Charlie the most was how, in the moment before he pulled Peter off Bella, his hand had jumped to his belt. Of course he hadn't had his gun on him, but he realized that if he had he probably would have shot Peter. He had _wanted _to shoot Peter.

_He had no business touching my little girl that way! _Except according to Bella, he did. Unfortunately her argument that she was over the age of consent was valid - valid enough to hold up in court at least, even if it cut no ice with her father. What mattered more to him was that she loved Peter - a lot. _So I guess it's a good thing I didn't shoot him. He and I are still gonna have a talk tomorrow. _

###

Charlie didn't hear a peep from Bella all morning. At half-past eleven he cracked open her bedroom door to check whether she was even still in there; sure enough, she was curled up in her bed, just the way she normally slept, with her hand balled into a fist close to her throat. Satisfied, Charlie went downstairs, picked up the phone, and dialed the Petrelli/Bennet household.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Claire, is Peter home?" She was such a sweet girl, Charlie felt a tiny twinge of guilt that he was calling to chew out her uncle.

"Yeah, just a sec. Peter! The Chief wants to talk to you!"

Another phone was picked up somewhere in the house, and then Claire hung up. "Hello, Chief." Peter's voice on the other end of the line sounded cautious.

This conversation was guaranteed to be painfully awkward no matter what Charlie said, so he decided to cut straight to the point. "I need to talk to you. Privately. Meet me at the station at lunchtime? I'll order in from the diner."

"That'll work."

_Forks police station_

Peter - and the food - were already there when Charlie arrived. "Afternoon, Chief." Even knowing he was in hot, or at least very warm, water, Peter still kept his cool. Charlie wished he felt so calm about the conversation about to take place.

"So. You know what I wanna talk to you about."

"Bella?" Peter prompted.

"Yeah. Bella."

Seeing that Charlie was at a loss for words, Peter filled in the blanks himself. "You wish she'd found someone closer to her own age."

"Well yeah, but Bells has never been much of a teenager, you know. She's taken care of her mother for years - emotionally as well as cooking and making sure the bills get paid - and it's matured her. I'd say mentally you two are just about even."

"Thanks." Peter took that as a compliment, especially since he knew some people - his mother for instance - who would more likely than not place Bella a little higher up the maturity ladder than him. "Then what's the problem?"

Charlie fidgeted. "I dunno if you know this, but Bella had another boyfriend before you - just one other one."

"Edward Cullen. She told me about him."

This surprised Charlie; after spending so many months flinching when anyone so much as said Edward's name, he couldn't believe she had actually discussed him with her new guy. "She tell you what happened when the Cullens left town last year?"

Peter shrugged, though not carelessly. "She told me that she was depressed for a long time; she used to think of her and Edward as a permanent thing."

"That sounds like her, all right, but she watered it down for you." Charlie leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. "Depressed doesn't begin to cover what she was like. For a week after he left she just laid in bed - wouldn't eat or drink, wouldn't _move_. I thought I'd have to hospitalize her. I called Renee to take her to Florida...in case we had to get her help, I didn't want to be the one... But she wouldn't go. She woke up with a vengeance - threw what clothes of hers we'd packed all over the place and screamed that we couldn't make her leave - and then she finally started crying. I hoped that would be the turning point, and she did seem to get better for a while..."

"But?"

"But she wasn't the same. She'd eat and sleep and do homework, she'd answer if someone asked her a direct question, but she was...empty. Her eyes were blank; there was just no _life _in her anymore. She got real neurotic about avoiding anything that reminded her of him - music, TV, Shakespeare, that sort of stuff. It was night of the living dead around our house."

"Well, I don't know about the undead, but I did think she seemed sad a lot when we first met. Why're you telling me all this?"

"Because you need to know," Charlie said forcefully. "Bella's in love with you-"

"And you think I don't feel the same way about her? That doesn't make sense. If I didn't, why would I date her?"

Based on his knowledge of why men did things like that Charlie thought, _For sex, obviously. _

Peter's expression darkened; he seemed disgusted, almost as if he somehow knew what Charlie was thinking. Impossible - there was no such thing as mind reading. "You think I just want to get in her pants?"

Okay, so maybe he _could _read Charlie's mind. "That's not the kind of guy I think you are, Peter, but I have to look out for my daughter here. See, Bella's always been such a constant little thing - she doesn't get past stuff. I don't think she would've ever got over Edward if not for you, and if she gets burned again..."

"She won't." Peter leaned forward, into the path of a shaft of sunlight from the office's one window. The faint illumination lightened his dark eyes and turned them transparent; the effect was similar to suddenly seeing into the depths of a clouded pool, exposing everything below the surface. "Chief Swan - Charlie - I love Bella. I don't see that changing, and I would never do anything to hurt her."

A long, drawn-out sigh escaped Charlie, as if a huge weight had been lifted. "That's what I needed to hear. Thank you. I guess that's it then." He opened the takeout bag from the diner and pushed a Styrofoam box across his desk toward Peter. Before Peter could open it, however, his cell phone rang and he answered it instead.

Whoever was calling began talking immediately when Peter picked up and continued doing so for several seconds. He finally managed to get in a single word - 'no' - before apparently being interrupted. "No," he cut in more firmly this time, "I doubt it... Yeah, I'm still at the station... No she isn't. I'll ask him. Chief, you grounded Bella last night, right?"

"Sure did."

"Is it normal for her to sneak out when she's not supposed to?" Peter had never known Bella to get grounded before and therefore didn't know how cooperative she would be when she was.

"Of course not, why?"

"Claire just tried calling her and she says there's no answer at your place."

Charlie frowned. "Bells should be up by now, and she would answer the phone."

"Exactly. Claire sounded a little concerned; she's heading over there now."

The two men stared at each other across the desk, trying to convince themselves that there was nothing wrong. So Bella wasn't answering the phone - maybe she was still asleep. But they both knew she wasn't in the habit of sleeping until noon; Charlie suspected she had only stayed in bed so late in order to avoid him. Maybe her grounding had put her in a foul mood and she was sulking. But that wasn't like her either. By tacit mutual consent, Peter and Charlie abandoned their takeout and headed out to the cruiser.

_The Swans' house_

Peter and Charlie arrived at the same time as Claire, and all three took in the same disturbing sight in the same instant. The door had been blasted off its hinges and was now lying inside the house - what was left of it anyway. Claire ran for the gaping hole where it used to be, but Charlie caught her and pushed her behind himself. "Stop! Running in before they're sure the guy that broke in is gone is how people get themselves killed! I'll check it out; you and Peter stay here." He entered slowly, cautiously, gun out and ready to fire at a moment's notice.

Claire and Peter followed discreetly once Charlie was too far inside to keep a close eye on them. "Someone fire-blasted the door," Claire observed, flipping over a charred piece of wood with her foot. "How likely do you think the burglars of Forks are to own flamethrowers?"

"And pick the police chief's house to break into? Nope, this was definitely one of us," Peter grimly replied.

"But Bella could shut them down with both hands tied behind her back. So she has to be okay, right? Where the hell is she?"

"I don't know, Claire." Everything apart from the door looked exactly as it always did, leaving no clue whatsoever as to what had happened after the intruder forced entry. "If I could hear her thoughts I could find her; instead we'll have to search the house the old-fashioned way in case she's, I don't know, hiding in a closet or the attic or something." _But if that were the case, wouldn't she have come out by now? _Peter shoved the little voice to the back of his mind, refusing to listen to it. Bella had to be here somewhere. She just had to be.

She wasn't. They looked everywhere just in case she'd decided to stay hidden until someone came for her or been knocked out; she was nowhere to be found. The lock had been shot off her bedroom door, her bed torn apart and flung across the room with such force that it had smashed a hole in the wall, and she was gone.

Leaving Claire and Charlie in Bella's trashed room, Peter slipped out into the hallway, concentrated harder than ever on Bella, closed his eyes and waited for some awareness of her present location to creep in. Nothing. It was as if Bella had dropped off the face of the earth. And if he was unable to locate her... He had heard that this ability didn't work for finding a deceased person... _No! No damn way! _After everything she'd survived - James, Sylar, Victoria - she _couldn't _be dead. He couldn't lose her again.

His cell phone beeped, and he automatically answered. "Yeah?"

"Hey man, I was just...you...swap shifts with m-?"

The phone died with a final crackle of static just as the acrid stench of burning plastic hit Peter's nose. He lowered it from his ear, staring in disbelief as the phone melted, bubbled, hissed, and twisted in his glowing hand.

Claire came pelting out of Bella's room, apparently drawn by the smell - it was rapidly permeating the air and couldn't be ignored by anyone without a clothespin holding their nose shut. "Peter! _What are you doing_?"

"I'm not doing anything!" _Crap this can't be happening _again_!_

"Okay Peter, I know you must be really upset right now," Claire began in what was obviously meant to be a soothing tone, "I am too, but you've gotta get a grip. Bella wouldn't want you to blow up Forks."

"Believe me, I don't want to... I think I might be about to anyway. I can't stop it! Claire, you have to...have to get Charlie out..."

She just stared hopelessly at him, knowing as well as he did that there was no way Charlie, or anybody else for that matter, would be able to escape the blast radius before Peter exploded - which he was sure he was going to do, only this time there was no Nathan around to keep him from hurting people when he did. Within minutes, he and Claire would be the only ones left alive in several hundred square miles.

Charlie glanced up from the wreckage of Bella's room, suddenly noticing that he was alone in there. Where the devil had Peter and Claire run off to at a time like this? Peter at least should've stayed if he cared for Bella as much as he claimed to. Hearing his and Claire's voices from the hall, Charlie stepped out to demand that they get their butts back in there and make themselves useful - not that there was a whole lot either of them could do, but Charlie couldn't be expected to think rationally when his daughter was missing - and was met with a sight so strange his immediate reaction was to think that his eyes must be playing tricks on him. There was no way Peter's hands could actually be _glowing_, was there? "What the...?"

"Charlie - you need to shoot me!"

"I- What?"

"Shoot him!" Claire exclaimed. "He's radioactive and if you don't shoot he'll turn Forks into a nuclear wasteland!"

Charlie only gaped at her, immobilized by shock. It was worse than what he'd felt upon catching Bella making out with Peter; even _that_ had been easier to process than the idea of an exploding man. Stuff like this just didn't happen in Charlie Swan's world.

Seeing that Charlie was freezing up, Peter decided to give him a nudge and did something he'd never done before. He deliberately reached inside Charlie's mind. _Come on Chief, you wanted to do this last night. Shoot me! _He pulled up Charlie's memory of the night before, when he'd actually reached for his gun...

The bullet hit Peter's chest dead center, splintering his sternum and sending him to the floor, the radioactive glow fading from his hands as his system shut down. "You should never have done that with my little girl!" Charlie kept pulling the trigger, firing again and again until the hammer finally clicked on an empty chamber. Then the fury-induced haze lifted, leaving him with the bullet-riddled body of the man he'd just gunned down - right in front of his niece, no less. "Claire, I-"

"Don't worry about it," she said calmly.

"Don't worry about it? _I just killed your uncle! _How can you-?"

A soft metallic clink interrupted him. He followed Claire's cool blue gaze to Peter's body; incredibly, the bullets lodged in his chest seemed to be digging themselves out. His wounds closed once they were clear of metal until there was no sign at all that he'd ever been injured apart from residual bloodstains on his shirt. "Did you have to empty the whole damn clip into me, Chief?"

Charlie stumbled backward, instinctively raising his empty gun - he'd seen enough horror movies to know it was bad news when a dead person got up - but Claire grabbed his wrist, twisted the weapon out of his grasp and threw it away before he even realized he'd lost it. His attention remained riveted on Peter. "H-how-? What-? I killed you..."

_Take a nap, Chief. _Peter caught Charlie as he slumped toward the floor, threw the unconscious form over his shoulder, and carried him to his room. There he erased Charlie's memories starting with Claire's phone call, then paused. It had occurred to him that as long as he was doing radical memory overhaul, it wouldn't be that much of a step further to erase a little bit more...say, back to last night, for instance.

He hesitated. On one hand, he really didn't like to violate anyone's mind this way. On the other, Bella had wanted their relationship kept secret from her father, even after all the times Peter had asked her to reconsider - her dad, her call. It wasn't Peter's place to interfere in her family life. Then there was the part where Bella might still be in trouble with Charlie when she came home... Charlie, Bella - there was really no question who was more important to Peter. He wiped a few more hours' worth of memories, then implanted new ones in their place. _Bella's gone with Claire to visit a couple of the universities they're considering for next fall. You're not going to worry if she doesn't come home in a day or two. When you wake up, you're going to fix the door and Bella's room, and then you're going to forget about that, too. As far as you're concerned, this has been a perfectly ordinary day. _

**This is the next to last chapter of Reprise. The last one will fill in what Peter and Claire were doing while Bella was in Pinehearst and Bella's initial reaction when Peter told her he was going to kill Arthur at the end of Resurgence ch33. **

**Until I can update again, here's a Resilience preview to tide you over. ICorona23 and twilight432 have already seen it (congrats on getting my trivia question right, guys); everyone else, enjoy!**

(BPOV)

I turned and ran up the beach. With no other thought but to get away from Lauren, I never noticed where I was going until I felt grass instead of sand between my toes and the ground began sloping upward. Still I kept walking until I found myself on a high cliff overlooking the sea. I sat with my legs dangling over the precipice and tried to figure out how the night, which was supposed to be fun, had gone so horribly wrong. A loud howl from close behind me interrupted my thoughts; I swung my legs back over the cliff and scrambled to my feet, scraping my hands and shin on the rock. What was the pack doing? My answer came in the form of a ghostly white shape streaking out of the woods and straight up the cliff toward me. The vampire moved too fast for my eyes to keep up. I caught a glimpse of white skin and pale golden hair, and then she dove off the cliff's overhanging tip and vanished under the dark water below. Caught in her slipstream, I stumbled backward to the very edge. The stone crumbled away beneath my heel, pitching me down to the sea.


	17. What Petrellis Do

**Well, last chapter! I hope you've all enjoyed this and that it's been a good accompaniment to Resurgence. **

**Shout-outs to my wonderful reviewers: Hazelholly, Silver-eyed Queen, Stripy Gloves, pixie freak, Who Bella Wishes She Could Be, WhatDaVitamins, ICorona23, Brittz303, Engelmohr2004, Allebasii, lizandzackfan, lilquackers77, twilight432, spicy pepper10, imawesome34, singer981, I LOVE Sparkly Scars, Twilight Gleek, Everlasting Muse, selina972, and Disco Lemonade Diva. Y'all rock! **

Part XVII: What Petrellis Do

_Angela Petrelli - Primatech's Hartsdale facility_

The head of Primatech was asleep at her desk, confused images chasing each other through her subconscious. A terrible explosion, glowing scarlet eyes set in a pale face like a death mask, a shadowy room littered with corpses - no, _pieces_ of corpses that had been brutally torn apart - Peter surveying the carnage with a bleak sort of satisfaction while Claire sat huddled in a corner, her clothing covered in dark red stains, staring with wide, blank eyes, and a dark-haired girl who was somehow the cause of all this...

Angela's own scream woke her; instinctively she tried to raise a hand to her mouth, only to find that she couldn't move. Had Arthur hacked her dreams and paralyzed her a second time?

"Good, you're awake." Peter circled around Angela's chair into her line of vision, and she had to work to repress a gasp of horror. She hadn't seen her son since he'd returned from the future with Sylar's ability, when his newfound hunger had made him attack her. He seemed more in control now, but Angela could tell he was close to attacking her again, this time of his own free will.

"Peter, what's happened to you? Is it Claire? Is something wrong with her?" Angela supposed if that were the case it might push Peter over the edge, since as far as she knew Claire had been his only companion in the months since they had disappeared together.

"No, I'm fine." Angela struggled to turn her head in the direction of her granddaughter's voice and Peter relaxed his telekinetic hold, allowing her to see that Claire was indeed fine, though she seemed to have picked up Peter's foul mood. She stepped closer, folding her arms tightly across her chest. "It's the other girl we're worried about."

Angela was mystified. "What other girl?"

"Bella," Peter hissed, getting in Angela's face. "She's been kidnapped - maybe by you."

"That's outrageous! I don't even know this Bella; why would I kidnap her?"

"Don't play dumb," Claire snapped. "I heard you talking to my dad the day I left Costa Verde - that was _why_ I left! I know you'd planned something to do with me so when I got away from you, you could've decided to use my best friend as bait to get me back."

"You think I would do that?"

"Well, in the past you've done things that would've killed millions of people if you hadn't been stopped," Peter said coldly. "Remember the bomb on election night? Remember the Shanti virus? What's one girl compared to everyone who'd have died if either of those things had happened, huh?"

"All right, I've made some mistakes, I admit it-"

"_Mistakes? _That's what you call them?"

Ignoring Claire, Angela pressed on, "But that doesn't change the fact that I did _not_ have your friend abducted!"

"See, Peter, I _told_ you we couldn't just ask her! Are you gonna let her sit there and lie to your face _again_?"

"No, I can't..." Peter seemed to be wavering on the point of a very important decision; then his hesitation vanished, replaced by steely resolve. "I don't wanna do this, but I have to save Bella. I'm sorry, Mom." He probed her mind, searching for anything, anything at all, pertaining to Bella in her thoughts and memories.

It only took a couple minutes at most, but it felt longer to Angela; having a powerful telepath riffle through your mind the way a normal person would a file cabinet was quite uncomfortable, almost painful in spite of Peter's efforts not to hurt her. Finally, just when she thought she would scream if he kept at it a second longer, his mental probe withdrew.

"You were wrong," he told Claire. "She doesn't know anything, so we're back to square one."

"I'm sorry, Peter, I really thought-"

"Doesn't matter - we've just gotta look somewhere else." Peter let his metaphysical restraints fall away from Angela and reached for Claire's hand.

Realizing they were about to leave, Angela made a snap decision. "Wait! I may be able to help you find your friend."

"How? You didn't even know she existed until a few minutes ago."

Angela noted that Peter didn't sound angry, just worn down and discouraged. He was much more manageable this way. "That doesn't mean I won't dream about her."

"True..." After all, Peter himself had dreamed of Bella for days prior to actually meeting her.

"At the very least you can stay here until you find her. I understand why you had to leave, but I've still missed you."

This was where Peter was supposed to say 'I've missed you too, Mom'. The problem was that he wasn't entirely sure if he _had_ missed her. She was still his mother, whatever she'd done, so he supposed not missing her made him a horrible person...but there was no denying that life was easier without her in it. That hardly eased the guilty twinge in his stomach, which intensified when he tried to tell his mother he'd missed her and couldn't. Instead he said, "All right, we'll stay."

_Two days later_

Angela decided Peter might as well have gone back to wherever he called home these days, because he was so preoccupied with locating the elusive Miss Swan that it was like he wasn't really there at all, even when his body was. This came as no surprise to his mother, who knew very well that Petrellis were a lot like dogs with a bone - once they got their teeth into something, they would self-destruct before letting it go.

"Perhaps you should lay off for a while," Angela finally suggested. "The girl hasn't been in any of the places you've looked, and you're going to deplete yourself teleporting all over the globe on a wild goose chase."

"It's not a wild goose chase," Peter insisted. "She's out there somewhere, I just haven't looked in the right place yet. I've tried all the places she might have gone on her own, and everywhere someone else could've taken her - every Primatech facility on the damn planet, even Pinehearst-"

"_Pinehearst?_ Have you any idea how dangerous that was?"

Peter rolled his eyes; having barely escaped Pinehearst last time he'd been there, of course he appreciated the danger he'd courted by going there again. "Relax, Mom, I was only there for a second and I didn't even get that close." Bella was so familiar to him that he was capable of sensing her at a distance...unless she shielded herself from him. He discarded that notion instantly; there was no way Bella would leave him hanging like this.

"Nevertheless, you shouldn't-" Before she could tell Peter what he shouldn't do, Angela was interrupted by Claire's arrival.

"You're not gonna believe the phone call I just got."

_Five minutes earlier_

Claire sat on the low stone wall enclosing the Petrelli mansion's back garden, despondently swinging her feet out into the air and then back against the rock. The only thing worse than spending nearly three days, minus a few hours, not knowing where her best friend was or even if she was alive or dead was having to spend that time with Angela Petrelli. The woman had always gotten on Claire's nerves - and scared her slightly, if she was being honest. Lately she'd also begun shooting furtive, searching looks Claire's way, as if she knew an important secret Claire didn't know, or was waiting for her head to spin all the way around or something.

It was incredibly frustrating, though not nearly as bothersome as the fact that there seemed to be nothing Claire could do in her current situation. Her theory that Angela was behind Bella's kidnapping hadn't panned out; neither had her idea that Bella might have been bagged and tagged by another Company agent, and the odds of another brilliant suggestion hitting her were pretty low.

Those were her thoughts when her cell phone rang. She pressed the pink plastic shell to her ear but said nothing, not being in a talkative mood. Whoever was on the other end didn't seem to be feeling very chatty either - several seconds passed in silence before the caller tentatively asked, "...Claire?"

Claire nearly fell off her perch. "_Bella_? Is that you?"

"Yeah."

Claire couldn't believe it. She and Peter had spent days - not a few hours, not just one day, day_s_, with a plural 's' on the end - worried sick about Bella, and now she just decided to pick up the phone and check in? "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Only if you think it's funny." Bella sounded so exhausted that Claire felt a little of her anger dissipate. "Is Peter okay? I tried calling him first, and apparently his cell's been disconnected-"

"Never mind that," Claire interrupted; the story of how Peter had accidentally destroyed his phone was too complicated to get into now. "Where are you?"

_End flashback_

"I know where Bella is," Claire announced, and gave an address.

Peter stared at her, amazed. "How d'you know that?"

"You're not gonna believe this - she just called and told me."

"And she's okay?"

"Tired, but other than that she sounded all right. Go get her so we can ask where the hell she's been all this time."

Peter vanished, reappearing moments later with Bella; Angela noticed that teleporting seemed to take almost more energy than he had. _I did warn him that the energy required to use his powers was going to run out. He should've listened to me. _Then her gaze slipped over to the young woman - girl, really - who appeared to be in even worse shape than Peter, and horror wiped her mind blank. Bella Swan was the dark-haired girl from Angela's nightmare.

###

"...I'm gonna take care of him, Bella. I'm going to kill him."

Bella gasped and clutched at Peter as her face went white. "No! No, you can't!"

"Yes, I can." He gently detached her from his arm and held her, hoping she wasn't going to faint. "Are you all right?"

"How can you even ask me that when you just said you want to kill your father?" she asked weakly.

"What's the matter with you? After what he did I'd think you would want him dead...oh. You don't think I can do it." Saying that felt strange; Peter was used to Bella having more confidence in him, and it hurt to know that she didn't think he was a match for his father. _That must be why she kept me from finding her at Pinehearst. She was afraid I'd get hurt if I tried to take on D- no, _Arthur_. I'm never going to think of that man as my dad again. _

"No, I don't. Arthur's heartless - if you get in his way, he won't hesitate to kill you. You're not like that; you're not a murderer, Peter."

"I've killed before."

"Vampires - that's different since they're not human and you think of them as monsters, not people. Killing another human being in cold blood... Could you really do that?"

She clearly wanted him to say no. Peter wanted to say no, except that it would be a lie. "I don't know - premeditated murder isn't really my thing - but I think maybe I can. Since it's _him_."

"I don't want you to. Doesn't what I want count since I'm the one he hurt?"

"Bella, this isn't just about you. It's also about me and Nathan and everyone else who's been hurt by him, and everyone he _will_ hurt if nobody stops him. The whole world doesn't revolve around you, you know." Peter saw no reason to mention that his own personal world came pretty damn close to revolving around Bella.

"I don't care about the whole world, just you. I want you to be safe."

"So, if you were sure I can fight Arthur and come out okay...?"

Bella sighed. "Don't start. You couldn't be okay after killing your father, even if you don't consider him your family anymore."

"You do think I could take him, though?"

She hesitated. "You have the power, yes." _But not the killer instincts. _Seeing that Peter had guessed her thoughts and was about to argue, she said, "Look, we can pick up this discussion in the morning. I'm tired."

"I'll let you rest." Peter started to get up.

Bella grabbed him by the wrist. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Ah...you remember that my mother's here, don't you?"

"You mean to say that you're worried about she'll think of you spending the night in my room?" Bella shook her head disbelievingly. "You are so odd, Peter Petrelli."

Peter sat back down and pulled Bella close, tucking her against his chest so she couldn't see his amused smirk - there was something very funny about _her_ calling _him_ odd.

###

Angela spent the next day keeping an eye on Bella and Peter every minute they were together and didn't like what she saw at all. Peter was obviously very much in love with the girl and she seemed to feel the same way about him, which confused Angela. Her dreams had told her that their relationship would lead to nothing good, but how could that be when they seemed so happy? _Perhaps that's going to change later,_ she reasoned. She only knew what would happen, not how it would come about.

_At least I know what's set to happen right now; I may be able to change it. _She tried to warn Bella Swan that it would be in Peter's best interests for her to end things with him, only to be interrupted by Peter himself. Needless to say, he did not appreciate Angela's attempting to scare off his girl - that much was evident in the dagger-filled glare he shot her before taking off with Bella.

Angela watched them go - to the extent you could watch someone who moved at super-speed - reflecting that Peter really was much more a typical Petrelli than he was given credit for, at least when it came to being hardheaded to the point of self-destructiveness. He was determined to be with the girl who would ruin his life in spite of, or maybe because of, Angela's warnings; just because of her past misdeeds, he'd decided he didn't have to listen to her advice anymore. _He'll be sorry. _

**For those of you who I haven't already spilled this to, my next Heroes/Twilight crossover will feature a new pairing: Elle/Edward. Not that I've grown any less fond of Peter/Bella, I just want to try something different. I'm thinking of calling it Lightning Strikes if you feel like checking it out. **


End file.
